Take From Me, My Shattered Soul
by Chant99
Summary: An alternate sequel to Fallen Angel. Takes place after the series end of season 4 and before 'The Peacekeeper Wars'. In this alternate storyline, Shrike 457 catches up to Chiana after the apparent deaths of Aeryn & John. Chapter 14 now up. Dec 13 06.
1. Foreword

Take From Me, My Shattered Soul  
By Chant99 

**I'm back after taking close to a year off from writing. Partly because I was busy, party because of the lack of feedback I was getting on the site from my stories... so I had no idea if anyone was bothering to read them anymore or not.**

**Anyway, I had been picking away here and there at a few of my on-going tales, and recently got the bug to write more again. So I decided to knock off a few chapters to Shattered Soul. Taking the time off and away was probably a good thing, because it made me revist the story so far to catch up again, and it gave me a new look as to where this new alternate Farscape reality was heading.**

**Perhaps I'll add a few more chapters soon... or maybe I might touch up a few of the other on-going stories... maybe it'll be another year before I find out what happens next.The journey takes as long as it takes... and it depends on what Berret, Chiana, and the gang decide they want to whisper in my ear next...**

**Chant99 **

**September 3, 2005**

This story again is set in an alternate reality/time-line from the show and my other fictions.  
Thistale picks up basically where the end of series four leaves off but before "The Peacekeeper Wars" (which may or may not take place in this timeline.) with the oneexception that the events in my story "Fallen Angel" had taken place after "A Dog With Two Bones."  
This is alsoan alternate story line to "Fallen Angel: Road to Redemption" which I decided to play around with because I had some interesting thoughts on alternate events that could have taken place outside the "Fallen Angel" and RPG related fanfic. Eventually, these stories will probably be included in a series I call " The Dream Crystal" which is a bunch of short stories and parts I have written about alternate Farscape realities that I've been playing with for some time now.

To get back, this storyline I'm going to attempt to keep more inline with the show with the exception of adding the Berret - Shrike 457 character and the events in "Fallen Angel" where Chiana and Berret meet... just to see which direction this leads me and how messed up I can make my good buddy Berret (insert evil laughter here).  
So... the show story lineis basically intact, the events in "Fallen Angel" have happened to Chiana, where she meets Berret and both escape the Scarran Black Syndicate. The story picks upsa short time afterthe last show of series four. Berret catches up with Chiana and...


	2. Chapter 1

At one time she might have found the noise around the refreshment house to be confusing. But over the half cycle of her blindness, Chiana had learned to use her other senses to sort her surroundings out to a minor extent. Over the clink of glass wear and ceramic Raslek mugs, she caught the occasional snatch of conversation from the other patrons in the Inn. There was a couple having a romantic argument a short distance off to her right somewhere and several male beings planning something slightly illegal just to her left, probably at the next table, both conversations brought a self satisfied smirk to her dark lips.  
She couldn't decide which discussion was the most interesting to follow.  
A tiny creak of a floorboards behind her, made her automatically sniff at the air. Her senses sorted through the accretion of scents until she found the ones that reassured her. The hint of leather and sandalwood soap that he had bathed with the morning came to her. The creak of the floor was followed by the sweet hiss of heavy silk against silk and the small click of armor plates resettling themselves on his tall, lean, frame.  
She had gotten use to her blindness, but Chiana still hadn't accepted it - and doubted she ever would.   
She hated the helpless feeling of never knowing what was coming but the trip to the colony world had been necessary. She was glad to have his company in the crowded tavern they waited in, glad that he had found her after she believed for so long that he was dead.  
He shifted his weight once again somewhere behind her. He normally moved silently even with the extra weight of his armor, but she had the feeling he purposely made the minute noise so she'd know he was there without her having to go through the awkwardness of having to ask.  
The blind Nebari girl felt the slight change in the air current as he moved closer to her; a split microt later his hand lightly touched her shoulder.  
"The Luxan has returned," said the ex-Enforcer's unobtrusive neutral-toned voice.  
Chiana reached up with her own hand and rested it over the top of his. She had taken to not wearing her usual leather gloves so she could better use her sense of touch to navigate her surroundings. The cool metal of the pulse armor that covered the top of his hand didn't surprise her. She let her fingers involuntarily wander down his hand until she encountered the tips of his fingers that his protective half-gloves left bare. When she found the warm digits, she squeezed onto them lightly. The remaining fellow members of Moya's crew thought the Shrike was as cold as the metal that habitually sheathed his body, but Chiana in her heart knew better. Still, unable to see his face and with the emotionless voice, even she at times needed the warm contact to remind herself that Berret wasn't the soulless creature that Rygel and Stark accused him of being. The ex-assassin almost imperceptivity squeezed her hand back for a microt and the image she held of Berret as they were escaping from the Syndicate stronghold filled her mind's eye. She used that mental photograph to turn aside what the other's told her they thought about him... and she idly wondered if she'd ever see his face again with her own eyes. Their first meeting seemed so long ago and so much had happened since then. The others only saw the dispassionate killing machine the Black Syndicate had left Berret; it was the little things like the hand squeeze that reassured her that Berret wasn't totally emotionless... or without warmth of any kind.   
She inwardly sighed and guessed that being blind helped one to notice tiny allusions like that.  
"Is anyone with him?" she expectantly asked the Shrike.  
"No," replied Berret. "He is alone."  
Chiana felt her hopes abruptly shrink. It had been a long shot that they would find the Diagnosan they were seeking here in this port town. The last three clues and stops they'd made had also been dead ends. Noranti had insisted that this healer she'd heard of was the one that could help Chiana if anyone could - so they kept searching.  
"Maybe he found something new out?" Chiana offered, trying to mask her disappointment.  
"Perhaps," Berret agreed noncommittally.  
  
The Nebari girl could now feel the Luxan warrior's approach through the wooden floorboards, his great weight reverberating along the planks to the soles of her boots. She imaged the crowd of patrons parting to clear a path for the huge Luxan as he made his way toward their table.  
The slight pressure of Berret's hand faded from her shoulder and she felt the slight breeze his cloak stirred as it settled back around his armored shoulders after he'd withdrawn his arm, the Shrike once again seemingly taking refuge from intimate contact within the black silk wall of his shroud.  
If D'argo saw the contact he made no mention of it as he arrived at the table.  
"I have found the Diagnosan," her lover announced to her surprise.  
"Where?" Chiana exclaimed, her mood turning from disappointment to hope again in a heartbeat.  
D'argo pulled out a chair and dropped his large frame into it before answering. He spared the cloaked man behind the blind girl an unpleased glower before continuing. As usual, the look didn't register or appear to faze Berret in any way. He remained a stolid sentinel draped in black behind the girl.  
"He has a clinic on the opposite side of town," D'argo supplied a microt later. "I've confirmed it. He is the one we have been looking for."  
"The eye specialist!" gasped Chiana. The Nebari's sightless eyes grew larger in hope. The bright silver-gray irises with their black pin-prick size pupils plucked at the big warriors heartstrings when he recalled the soulful dark eyes that use to regard him from Chiana's beautiful face. The altered appearance of her eyes too closely reminded him of how the Shrike's eyes sometimes were when he was on the hunt or in the heat of battle. D'argo forced all thoughts of the assassin from his mind for the moment and focused on what was important for the moment. He reached forward and clasped Chiana's hand from across the table.  
"Optic neurologist," the Luxan corrected, a smile for the girl building in his normally gruff voice.  
To the couple's trepidation, the Shrike spoke up behind them and callously intruded on the moment.  
"That presents a problem," Berret commented without any attempt at delicacy.  
D'argo let out a hiss of annoyed Luxan ire at the man, so much for his effort to ignore him.  
"Why must you be the frelling voice of doom for every turn of good luck we have?" he demanded in burning sarcasm. He really disliked Berret... no; check that - he hated the Shrike. And it didn't matter to the Luxan one iota that the killer had saved them from being imprisoned on the planet where John and Aeryn had been killed. It was bad enough being what he was... a hired killer, a murder for the Scarran Black Syndicate... a Shrike Enforcer. But after they had freed Moya and escaped, Chiana had insisted that Berret be allowed to remain with what was left of the Leviathan's crew. The Nebari had latched onto the Enforcer and no amount of reasoning could make her change her mind about allowing Berret to stay. The fact that his Nebari lover refused to elaborate on exactly how she and the assassin had met irritated the Luxan to no end. Attempts to get the information from the Shrike had only led to them coming to blows. The repeated conflicts had still resulted in no answers and had only angered Chiana to the point were she threatened to end their renewed relationship if he didn't leave the ex-assassin alone.  
For Berret's part, he stood aloof from the rest of the crew, only really associating with Chiana... and occasionally with Pilot, to D'argo's surprise. However, Chiana was the only one he even allowed close enough to touch him. Something Noranti found out unexpectedly when she tried to offer him medical aid after the small skirmish to free Moya and she laid a hand on him without asking, as she was wont to do with almost everybody usually. In response, the Shrike hurled her into a bulkhead before anyone could stop him. The old woman handled the incident as she did all others with her crewmates. The blow was quickly forgiven and forgotten, though she has never tried to touch Berret again to the best of D'argo's knowledge.  
  
"Are you forgetting your escape from the authorities in this system?" the ex-Enforcer inquired in his exasperatingly dispassionate tone. "That portion of the city is better patrolled then this side."  
D'argo grimaced with impatience. "I know that! Are you forgetting the guards you slaughtered in the break out that made us wanted?" he said irately, "Its hard to forget we're fugitives in this system with all the farbing wanted beacons around very bend. That doesn't change the fact that this Diagnosan is Chiana's only chance at getting her sight back."  
"Agreed," the Shrike answered.   
"I'm so happy that you do," the Luxan warrior replied with dripping cynicism.  
D'argo hated it when the assassin started a debate and then went back to one-word answers... even if he was agreeing with what D'argo was saying. He wondered why Berret even bothered raising the subject if he was going to concur in the end away. The Luxan considered the thought that maybe the Shrike was doing it just to get on his nerves.  
"You don't have to come with us to the Diagnosan, Shrike," D'argo sneered the next moment. "You can return to Moya if you're afraid."  
"No," replied the Shrike, his expression as blank as always.  
Chiana interrupted, moving her sightless gaze from side to side where she judged the two males to be.  
"Are you sure, 'Ret?" she asked sincerely. "D'argo and I can go alone to see the Diagnosan. You've done enough already with helping free us from that jail."   
"I am sure," the ex-Enforcer confirmed from somewhere behind her.  
"Thank you," Chiana responded with a grateful smile. D'argo muttered a slight annoyed curse.  
After John and Aeryn's "murder", D'argo had flown into a rage. While Noranti, Stark, and Rygel had retrieved their crewmates remains from the rowboat, the Luxan had taken his ship in search of the craft that had killed his friends. Instead of vengeance, he'd flown straight into an ambush. His ship was snared in some sort of power draining device and he was captured after being rendered unconscious at the controls.   
He had woken in a cell sometime later to find that the rest of Moya's crew had been taken prisoner as well and were occupying various cells nearby. Moya was also being held captive, secured at a military shipyard.  
Somehow as near as D'argo could tell, Berret had learned of Chiana's whereabouts and tracked them to the water-planet where they had stopped to heal the Leviathan.   
The Shrike had appeared one night on the cell level and slashed through the lock of Chiana's cell with gore-stained brace blades. At first the Luxan helplessly screamed and threatened the cloaked man as he entered blind girl's cell. Instead of the cries of terror from the Nebari that D'argo expected, Chiana's panicked voice first turned to confusion after the man had spoken a few muffled words, to one of disbelief, then to one of joy.  
The pair exited her prison cell a moment later. The Shrike would have continued on with the escape but Chiana had made him turn back and free the rest of her shipmates.  
As the group left the detention center, the Luxan found himself thinking that he was glad for the first time of Chiana's blindness. The carnage that the Shrike had left behind him on the way inside unsettled even his battle-hardened warrior constitution. It didn't help that Stark constantly babbled over the slaughter and had to be dragged along by force several times when the Banik stopped to attempt to help a dying guard across into death.   
The Syndicate Enforcer that Chiana had hastily introduced as Berret stepped over the bodies as he led them out without notice or concern, his apathy at the destruction seemingly to exceed even Rygel's.  
The group concluded their escape from prison in Berret's nearby ship, which turned out to be an unmarked Peacekeeper Wraith Cruiser. A three-man surveillance vessel that was a little crowded with six beings inside it. It was also well armed, which was a great help when a few arns later they returned to bust Moya out of the shipyards and retrieve D'argo's Luxan warship. After this - as John use to say - Everything went to hezmana in a hand-basket.  
  
It soon became obvious that Berret had shown up with the full intent of taking Chiana with him when he left. To make matter worse, the Nebari hadn't exactly told him straight out that she had no intentions of leaving Moya... or D'argo. Instead the girl had danced around the subject for several arns until finally asking to speak with the Shrike privately in her quarters. D'argo fumed the longer the pair remained cloistered in the locked chamber. Chiana had stubbornly refused to elaborate on how or where she came to know the assassin... saying only that he was a friend and that she trusted him.   
D'argo was pacing in his quarters, next-door to Chiana's, when he heard her door cycle open. The Shrike's metal shod boots rang on Moya's deck as he marched from the converted cell. The Luxan moved closer to his door to listen, concealed by the heavy drapes that covered the access way.  
"Berret..." he heard Chiana call from her doorway. The footsteps halted in the corridor. A peek through the curtains showed the Shrike standing in the middle of the hallway, his back to the cells.  
"I understand," the Enforcer said without turning, his voice almost a whisper.  
"I-I wish I could see your face," the Nebari continued. "I don't think you do."  
The tenderness in Chiana's tone left a cold feeling in D'argo's stomach. His fists clenched at the heavy drapes and he realized he was on the verge on ripping them to shreds in his effort to keep from rushing out to confront the pair. If he and the Nebari girl were to ever fix their relationship, he had to learn to trust Chiana again despite her betrayal with Jothee and the hurt it caused him.  
The Shrike turned slightly back to look at the gray girl.  
"It does not matter," he said tonelessly, "I will respect your decision." He started to turn away again.  
"What will you do?" she asked.  
Berret paused once more, his shoulder's slumped slightly. It was apparent to the Luxan that the Shrike was anxious to leave the conversation behind after it hadn't turned out as he'd hoped.  
"I am going to the Wraith," Berret explained. "I'm leaving to attend to some unfinished business with the Syndicate. I suspended my plans for the time when I heard word of your whereabouts."  
"Don't leave!" said Chiana, "Stay here with us."  
"Why?"  
Chiana cautiously left her quarters and slowly made her way to him, her senses guiding her to the Shrike's position in the corridor unerringly. She halted when her outstretched hands came into contact with his black-silk cloak.   
"There's nothing to be gained by seeking vengeance," the blind girl told him.  
"Its all I have," Berret answered. For the first time, D'argo saw his eyes register a hint of emotion.  
Chiana's silver-gray irises regarded him almost as if she could see him. She then shook her head.  
"No! No, that's not all you have," she countered. "You still have me, we will always be friends. You can have a home here on Moya with the rest of us."  
Berret turned his gaze off to one side for the moment. When he looked back, his eyes had become soulless once more.  
"The others do not want me here. They have made that perfectly clear," he replied.  
"They will if I make them," Chiana responded with certainty. "Please... I've lost enough friends these last few weekens. Don't you leave me too. Not after I found you again."  
The Shrike hesitated. D'argo found himself silently encouraging the assassin to stick to his first plan and to leave Moya.   
"It will not work," Berret finally said.  
"Trust me," pushed the Nebari woman.  
"This is not my place."  
Chiana's face fell. She lowered her hands from were they rested on his chest. The Nebari turned her sightless gaze away from the Shrike as if she'd been rejected by the man she thought her friend.  
"If that is what you believe," she said, "Then it never will be. Can you tell me then... if your place isn't here? Then where is it? Back with the Syndicate? Alone and on the run? Where is it you think you belong?"  
Berret looked as if he was trying to come up with an answer, but one evaded him.  
"I don't know," he finally admitted.  
"Then stay here until you do know," Chiana told him.   
The Enforcer looked about him as if in silent debate with himself. Much to the Luxan's disappointment he finally turned back to Chiana and said,  
"Very well. I will try... only because you believe."  
"That's all I ask," Chiana answered with a small smile.  
"But you are the only one I do trust," the Shrike put in a microt later.  
Chiana nodded in understanding. "That's a start," she told him.  
  
"When can we go, D'argo?"  
Chiana's question brought the Luxan out of his reflection and back to the moment. He glanced up and saw that the Nebari had tilted her head to one side in query and he wondered how many times she'd asked him her question before he noticed. Behind her, Berret was also looking at him with some interest - though not much.  
D"argo cleared his throat before supplying the answer.  
"Ah-hem... The doctor is out of the clinic at the moment. I was told he should return there within two arns," the warrior explained.  
"So we're going then?" asked Chiana.  
"Yes. I thought the less time we spend in that section of town the better," Dargo continued. He hadn't wanted to admit it, but the Shrike was right about the law patrols being heavier in the Diagnosan's part of the city.   
"Good," replied Chiana as she squeezed D'argo's hand.  
The Luxan gave her a warm smile she couldn't see just as Berret stepped around and away from the table.  
"In the meanwhile, I have some business of my own to take care of while we wait," announced the ex-assassin.  
Despite himself, D'argo felt an eyebrow raise in question. Not only was this one of the longest sentences he could remember the Shrike ever speaking, but also it was the first time that Berret had indicated he had other plans beside what the group had hoped to accomplish on the planet. He also found it slightly suspicious that the Shrike suddenly developed the courtesy to inform them of his plans.  
"What sort of business?" inquired the warrior suspiciously.  
"Personal business," the Shrike answered, with what D'argo might have thought was a hint of annoyance.   
"That... is NOT a good enough answer," growled the Luxan.  
Berret's only reply was to gaze at D'argo with unexpressive eyes. It was obvious that the assassin had no attention of explaining himself further.  
"Bah!" D'argo spat a moment later. "Do what you want, just don't expect us to wait for you," he said, deciding that it was far better to be rid of the Shrike if even just for a short time. "If you haven't joined us or returned to the Transport Pod by the time we're ready to leave... we'll go without you."  
Berret gave him a slightly disdainful stare and then pulled the hood of his cloak up over his head before turning to leave the refreshment house without further comment.  
"Frelling Shrike," D'argo muttered at Berret's departing form. The warrior turned back to Chiana to find her biting at her lower lip in concern. The Nebari girl had kept her peace while the two males had their test of wills. The big Luxan knew that Chiana hoped that Berret would eventually find a way to fit in with the Leviathan crew, but D'argo knew it was a lost cause. The ex-Enforcer and D'argo would never come to a truce. There were no more natural enemies than a Luxan warrior and a Shrike assassin.  
D'argo sighed heavily to himself and shook his head. Chiana would simply have to learn for herself that there could be no lasting peace among the crewmates as long as Berret remained with them. Still, with Chiana in the condition she was in, he didn't have the heart to force the issue. He would wait and let her come to the conclusion for herself... and hope in the mean time that the Shrike didn't betray them in some way before she came around to seeing the light.  
He forgot about the Enforcer for the time being. Hopefully the Diagnosan would know of a cure for the gray woman's blindness and he focused once more on those thoughts.  
"So," he said out loud, getting Chiana's attention back and endeavoring to put them both into a better mood. "What do you say we have something to eat while we wait?"  
  
LaSaResh didn't need to hear the man's footsteps at his front walk to know the visitor was approaching.  
Just before he knew the man's fist would be knocking on the shack's door jam, he called out in greeting.  
"The door is open, enter if you will."  
The hovel's slatwood door gently swung open on tough leather hinges. LaSaResh glanced up from his reading to inspect his company. He knew someone was coming, just as he always knew when someone was seeking him - it was part of the gift he'd always had for as long as he could remember. He no longer gave the talent any thought and just accepted it. What his gift never told him was who the visitor would be. He expected it as usual to be one of the other people who resided in the shantytown on the outskirts of the city, looking for his advice on one thing or another... or perhaps some type of medical treatment that they couldn't afford at the more expensive Healers in the city. He was known for having more then one home remedy for many types of afflictions the poorer denizens of the commerce port suffered, herbal knowledge that was handed down to him from his grand-sire.   
This time he was mildly taken aback to look up and see the tall stranger draped in a flowing black cloak. This indeed was a surprise... and more interesting then his normal guests. He closed the old script he'd been reading to pass the time and gave this new affair his full and undivided attention.  
  
LaSaResh regard the man for a moment. The shapeless garment that covered him made it hard to tell his build but the male looked to be of Sebacean descent, approaching middle age perhaps. His dark brown hair was braided into a ponytail held together at the end by a gold colored clasp of some sort. The braid would have reached somewhere just below his shoulders, but at present it had fallen carelessly over the front of his left shoulder. His eyes were of a cold blue and lacked expression for the most part, but they alertly swept his one-room shanty as soon as he entered the door. The old man caught a glimpse of metal covered boot under the hem of the black cloak as the man took a step into his abode.  
"Pardon the intrusion," the visitor apologized in a subtle voice that matched the eyes.  
LaSaResh politely nodded. He didn't mind the interruption of his rather dull day. In fact, he was finding the stranger growing more interesting by the microt. The man was obviously a visitor from off world and LaSaResh was very curious why he would have come to see him of all people.  
"It's perfectly all right, stranger," the old man replied in a voice that creaked almost as much as the ancient chair he was sitting in. "To what happenstance do I owe your visit, young man?"   
To the elder's surprise, the younger man looked momentarily at a lost for an explanation for his presences.  
For some reason the visitor didn't strike the old man as being the type to be indecisive at first impression.  
"The people in the market square," the man finally said, "Say that you can... see things about people. And that sometimes... you know how to 'fix' them when they are 'troubling'."   
LaSaResh leaned back in his chair, as he suddenly understood the unexpected visit by an off-worlder.  
"Ah!" he exhaled with an enlightened breath. "You speak of the Second-sight nonsense that everyone in these parts believes I have." The older man gave a light rusty chuckle. "That is just backward foolishness, son," he explained. "Its nothing more than using some common sense after listening to somebody's problems and trying to give some good advice... or knowing which grass that grows can sooth a hangover. Nothing mystic about it at all like them folks like to believe."  
The younger man pursed his lips in slight disappointment for a microt. The emotion faded from his face an instant later as he replied, "Never-the-less, I have heard a number of stories from many different people here about how you help them... become 'unconfused' with certain matters."   
The old man chuckled. "I've never quite heard it put that way before," he said. The young man tilted his head curiously for a moment. The cloak parted slightly at the neckline, and LaSaResh observed a hint of more of the ebony metal covering his visitor's chest. "Just what is it that you wish to become 'unconfused' about?" the old man asked curiously.  
The younger man lips drew into a thin line for a moment before speaking.  
"There are things... thoughts I have..." the cloaked man began, "Thoughts I've never had before."  
"Go on," the elder man urged, bewildered but becoming more intrigued by the microt by his strange fellow.  
"I want to go back to like it was before," said the man.  
LaSaResh shook his head. "You've lost me. I'm not sure what you mean," he said.  
The cloaked man started to pace a short way around the shack's main room.  
"These thoughts, these wants... desires, they cloud my judgment," explained the visitor. "No more is my way clear. I've become confused, uncertain. I know of no other way to explain myself."  
The old man shrugged and shook his head. "Well, you've certainly proved that to me already. I still don't understand what you want," he told the younger man, "These problems you say you have seemed only natural to me for a young man."  
"Not to me, they are not."  
"Perhaps you can give me a specific thing that distresses you," suggest LaSaResh. "Then maybe I'll better understand the problem."  
"Chiana," the cloaked male replied after a moments thought.  
"Chiana?" repeated the elder. "A female name, I take it?" The other man nodded and LaSaResh found himself grinning. "Ah, woman problems," he muttered out loud.  
"I find myself... doing things... more for her wishes than my own," the younger male continued. "Even when they contradicted my own stratagem or are not tactically sound ideas."  
LaSaResh clicked his tongue as he regarded his very odd visitor. "Son... that is the fate of most men. To do things they normally wouldn't for the shake of a woman," he continued.  
"Why?" the stranger demanded to know.  
"It just is," replied LaSaResh with another shrug. "How nature intended it to be."  
The young man took a step toward him. "That is not acceptable," he stated, "Can you fix it?"  
"Fix what?" asked the old man in puzzlement.  
"Make me the way I once was."  
LaSaResh's eyebrows arched upward in sudden surprise and he let loose a choked chortle.   
"No, Lad! I can't change the way you feel for this girl. If I could, I'd be a rich man by now."  
The other man blinked in confusion. "Feel?" he asked.  
"Why yes," confirmed LaSaResh, "It seems to me like you might be in love with this lass." The blank look on the younger man's face abruptly gave the old man pause. "You have been... in love before, haven't you?" Normally, to anyone else, the question should have been absurd. For some reason with this young man... it seemed cause for concern, as it wasn't normal.  
"No," he told the elder simply. The stranger paused and then added, "I do not know."  
"No?" repeated the older man dumbly. "You don't know?"  
The cloaked male tilted his head slightly. "Those such as I... do not feel... or love. It is not what we are."  
LaSaResh felt himself involuntarily edging away in his seat from the other man.  
"If you don't believe you... can feel these things, lad... what do you think you are?  
Somewhere along the line, the visitor's eyes had gradually taken on a silver sheen. The new fact abruptly struck LaSaResh as the stranger tilted his head in an odd manner. It hit the old man that he truly didn't know what kind of being his company was at that moment... now the conversation was beginning to take on a totally new significance.  
The stranger's stare seemed to fade off into the distance for the moment.  
"Nothing," he replied in a far-away voice, "...No one."  
LaSaResh apprehensively gripped the arms of his old chair. "I don't know what you think I can do for you?" he told the younger man. The visitor moved a few paces closer to the old man and then crouched down on bent knees until he was eye level with the elder. His cloak fell open, revealing more of his strange garb. The young man was covered in blackish-blue metal plates, the same as his boots.  
"I want you to take it away," he said to LaSaResh, his voice holding the hint of a desperate plea. "I do not wish to 'feel' anymore." 


	3. Chapter 2

"There... treatment... done," said the Diagnosan in its singsong voice as it removed an optical-regenerator away from Chiana's face. The machine swiveled away from the Nebari girl and D'argo was disappointed to see that Chiana's eyes were still silver with black pinpoints for irises.  
"I still can't see!" exclaimed Chiana.  
"It didn't work!" growled the Luxan at the same time.  
The Diagnosan held up one hand with extended forefinger to halt them from further speaking.  
"Take time," it explained, "Treatment... began... at optic nerve. Work... outward."  
D'argo calmed a little. "So we have to wait?" he asked. The Diagnosan nodded its head and then replaced its mask before turning off the sterile field it operated under.  
"How long?" added in Chiana.   
"Will know... success... anytime in... next... three solar days," answered the healer. "If longer... than three..." the Diagnosan continued with a sad shake of its head, "no success. Treatment... fail."  
Chiana swallowed hard once and attempted a brave face.  
"Well, I guess we wait the three days then," she said. "Not like I have anything else better to do."  
The Luxan frowned deeply at the news but elected not to say anything that might discourage Chiana from her hope. The Diagnosan waved for them to follow him into the next room.  
"Come... give to you... herbal wrap... for eyes," it explained, "help process, increase chances."  
D'argo took Chiana's arm and guided her after the healer. They entered a room full of supplies, files, and storage racks that seemed to be monitored by some sort of medical equipment. The Diagnosan rummaged around through his supplies, allowing the warrior to idly survey the room while they waited.  
The doctor found what he was looking for and then returned to the couple and instructed them on how to prepare the herbs and how Chiana was to use them to cover over her eyes while they healed.   
They were just getting ready to leave when D'argo got a closer look at what was on the shelves on the storage racks. At first glance he had taken them to be medication of some type stored in cylinder-like glass containers. Closer he realized the small ball forms looked very familiar.  
"Wait!" he said as he brought the group to a halt by one stand. "What is that?" he asked, pointing a finger at the nearest cylinder.  
The Diagnosan blinked its eyes in puzzlement while Chiana asked, "What's what, D'argo?"  
"That," repeated the Luxan, forgetting for a moment the Nebari's blindness.  
The doctor realized what the Luxan was asking and answered.  
"They... patients... in molecular... bio-storage," the healer explained. "Serious illness... wait for... transport... to other facility. Better medical... care."  
"You mean these are beings in those containers? And they are still alive?" shot in D'argo.  
"What is it? What's going on, D'argo?" Chiana broke in, starting to look a little panicked.  
The Diagnosan answered before the Luxan could inform the Nebari girl.  
"Yes... safer way... for patients... to wait and... travel. Safer for others... no spread... infections."  
Chiana wasn't going to wait anymore for anyone to clue her in.  
"What is it, D'argo! Tell me what's going on!" she demanded.  
The Luxan turned to the girl, it was clear the doctor wondered what his interest was in the patients also.  
"It's the same round spheres that Crichton and Aeryn were turned into by that weapon," he told her. "The Diagnosan says these are patients waiting for transport to another hospital or medical center."  
Chiana's blind eyes widened in surprise, "I heard that part," she said. "Do you think this means that Aeryn and John are still alive?"  
"Maybe," replied the Luxan, he then turned back to the doctor. "Tell us, does the military forces here on this planet use the same technology as a weapon? Maybe to take prisoners without a fight?"  
The Diagnosan nodded its head as it received the answer to the warrior's strange questions.  
"Yes... technology used... by military... and medical. Also... law enforcement. Better way... quarantine... better way... capture... hold prisoners. Gentle... no harm come."  
"Then they're not dead?" Chiana said.  
"No... not fatal," said the doctor.  
Chiana smiled with the news and D'argo found himself almost grinning for the first time since John and Aeryn's apparent deaths.  
"Can you take someone out of this stasis? Can you bring them back?" he asked next.  
The Diagnosan shook his head in the negative. "No," it replied, "Can only put... in suspension. Reassembly... only at... hospital... off world. Clinic... not big enough... for all technology. Military or... police... centers only... here."  
Chiana's shoulders suddenly slumped.  
"We're frelled," she moaned.  
  
Berret made his way through the narrow trash cluttered street of the shanty section of the trading port. Most of the buildings were bricked or boarded up, the business that once had inhabited them had long since moved to more prosperous parts of the town, leaving the empty gutted structures to whomever want to make use of them. The streets themselves were little more then over grown semi-paved paths, littered by debris and the occasion loosened paving stones. The odor of over-ripe trash and humanoid waste drifted around the Shrike and he unconsciously tightened his midnight cloak around his body as if the garment could help keep the annoyingly unpleasant stench at bay.  
The ex-Enforcer internally wrestled with the disappointment with his visit with the old witchdoctor. LaSaResh had been unable to help him rid himself of these feelings... the desires he found he had for the Nebari girl. At first conception, the idea of searching for Chiana had seemed like the correct course to take after he'd happen to stumble across the information of a group of outlaws traveling on a rogue Leviathan.  
Since breaking them out of the prison, he'd reconsidered his decision in the light of hindsight. This was not how he had foreseen events unfolding... nor had he calculated for her rekindled relationship with the Luxan.   
He muttered a low curse, as he contemplation that what he should have done was just depart as soon as she made it clear she didn't want to leave with him. Instead, he let her talk him into staying aboard the living ship. Now he was surrounded by beings that he could only consider as potential threats if not outright enemies. Chiana was the only one he could trust... and she was turning out to be the most dangerous to him.  
Deep down he knew... he would do almost anything she asked - regardless of how big a mistake his instincts told him what she requested of him was. In some way he was more entrapped - bound to her - more surely then he ever was to the Syndicate by the control collar. The only difference being in this situation... there was nothing keeping him from walking away if he wanted too - but he found it hard to think about make himself do it, especially while she was in her present condition.  
How do you fight against something so intangible as this desire for her company? Where bounds of steel and electronic manipulate could not hold him prisoner forever, how could she accomplish it so easily with just a soft appeal and a heartfelt promise of hope? Berret's lip curled up in self-loathing as he concluded that Chiana held him in grip more inescapable than Arckatius could ever have forged with all the power of his underworld empire.   
He remembered the soulful eyes that had started chipping away at the collar's hold on him. The haunting beautiful voice as she sang in her cell. The rage she had awakened as she pleaded for his help as she was attacked. The near blinding pain of the collar as he tore it from his throat, the slaughter of the Syndicate men afterwards, the ever so savage need to avenge her. The pleasant confusion of her brief kiss and her moments of frenzy for him when she realized that he was staying behind to guarantee her escape.  
He had hoped with finding her that she could find a way to look pass what he had been. The longer he remained free in his travels, the more he realized he needed her to find his center, to balance and cope with these new emotions that the control collar had suppressed for so long.  
To help contain the rage that sometimes filled him since his release from the collar.  
But Chiana had chosen to stay and settle into a life with the Luxan.  
Her decision had been an unexpected blow to Berret. It had not occurred to him that the Nebari thief might not wish to go with him, that she had other plans for her future. The revelation only proved to Berret that he had much to learn about life outside the Syndicate as an Enforcer. As she sat in her quarters, staring blindly at him, she told him of her desire to make things right between her and D'argo. The Shrike knew then that he couldn't confess his need for her. That he wanted her help with sorting through the confusion his freedom from the Scarrans left him in. How he wanted so badly for her to show him how to become a person she could care for. He owned her his freedom... and Chiana wanted D'argo. Berret vowed to himself that he would never tell her about his desires... nor would he ever let on to her the torment he was in. The burden was his and he would carry the weight without concerning her.  
However, it was so hard to be close to her... and force the feelings into dormancy. He had killed so many beings for the Syndicate in his life, why was it so impossible to kill these feelings within himself?   
So many times they had made him come close to losing the control over his facade.   
  
The brooding ex-assassin was so immersed in his own thoughts he didn't hear them until it was too late.  
"Give us your credits, mother-freller," said the large shadow that abruptly blocked Berret's path.  
His head snapped up at the voice and he was aware of several more footsteps closing in on him. To both sides, Berret now saw two more men move in to block his escape. The ragged looking thug on his right hefted a hammer that's peening end ended with a slightly curved spike to shoulder height in preparation to strike should he wander into the weapon's range. The one to the left held a length of pipe with a section of sharpened metal crudely welded to one end to make a short spear. He held his weapon ready just above waist level in the Enforcer's direction, his body cocked slightly to aid in trusting the spear.  
There were at least two more behind him, probably also armed in some way, that Berret couldn't see. However the Shrike considered that they had taken the rear positions in the ambush because they were less better armed then their companions and they didn't want their victim to realize the fact. Normally, Berret would have berated himself for not being more attentive to his surroundings. Unbidden, the ex-assassin found the darker parts of his nature taking over; he discovered that the situation was beginning to please him in some obscene way. He found himself craving the conflict and the violence that was coming.  
The man in front of Berret who had spoken first was most likely the leader and held the best weapon in the lot. In one dirty and scarred hand, he waved a laz-knife around, the kind used to cut ceramic flooring in building construction.  
The knife had seen better days and while the handle appeared to have been broken at one time and mended with friction tape, the working blade itself still hummed and crackled with a decent energy charge. The edges flared white-hot as the man showed-off by recklessly manipulating the handle in his hand so that one microt it was pointed at Berret and the next the thug had a backhand grip on it. The display was obviously meant to impress his victims. The glowing blade swung back around in the Shrike's direction again and this time the mugger held it steady.   
"Give it up!" the thief demanded, holding out his free hand.  
  
Berret casually reached up and pulled the hood of his cloak down... and then smiled. He felt the thin veneer of control eroding away from him. The desires to lash out and scream his pain was beginning to pound like a Luxan war drum in the back of his head.   
Perhaps this distraction would be just what he needed to take his mind off his tribulations.  
"Hurry up!" the man instructed.  
"I don't think this is a game you can afford to play," the assassin told the group.  
"We're not playing, drenhead!"  
"Neither am I. Run away and maybe I'll let you live."  
The Shrike smirked mockingly at the man, knowing he was adding fuel to the man's precariously nervous ego. His contemptuous insolence would only escalate the situation faster toward bloodshed.  
"We got you surrounded," barked the gang leader, "Just who the hezmana do you think you are?"  
Berret gave him another cold smile and silver began to tint his eyes. His blood began to pound in his ears.  
"I like to believe that... I am the deadliest creature you will encounter tonight."  
The thug glared at Berret's defiance and took a menacing step forward, raising the laz-knife up to eye-level with the Shrike.   
"Don't give me that dren!" he snarled, "Give up the money or we'll frelling kill you right here!"  
In response Berret held up one armored hand, his smile abruptly faded and his face became a death mask.  
"I told you, you didn't want to play."  
As he spoke, the brace blades slowly unsheathed themselves from the gauntlet. The thief's eyes suddenly grew wide in surprise and fear as the wickedly serrated twin blades grew in length. Reflected light sparkled and danced along the keen edges.  
"I hope you didn't bring anything you couldn't afford to lose," Berret said with a wicked grin, made all the more sinister by flaming silver eyes.  
  
The two thugs behind the Shrike couldn't see the weapon attached to his forearm brace, taking the sudden changes in expression from their leader as a sign; they rushed in to grab Berret.  
With his free hand, Berret reached up and released the clasp that held his cloak together around his shoulders. At the same time, he took a half step to his left while flinging the unfastened garment off and to his right rear to cover the head of the man charging at him from that angle. As the cape-like garment settled over the attacking thug and stalled his advance, his partner on the left made a quick attempt to seize his prey's arm only to feel the tips of his fingers graze the metal sheathed upper arm of man they were trying to rob as he easily twisted away and just out of reach.  
Berret whipped his left arm upwards in an arc and smashed an equally hard armor-clad elbow into the face of the robber who just tried to grab him. He immediately applied the same tactic to the man who was still trying to untangle himself from his cloak. An audible snap accompanied the blow and the figure ceased its struggling to drop in its tracks. In the time it took to blink an eye, Berret had neutralized both men who had flanked him. He wasn't sure about the first man he'd struck, but he'd been an Enforcer long enough to know the sound of snapping vertebrae when he heard it. There was no doubt the second man was dead with a broken neck. In any case both were on the ground and out of the fight.  
The ex-Shrike grinned savagely at the remaining men.  
"Opps!" the Shrike exclaimed with a mock innocent look. "I seemed to have broke them."  
"Kill him!" screamed the leader.  
The man to Berret right side realizing now that his opponent was covered in armor plate reversed his hammer so he could use the spike end of the heavy head to punch through the armor. He screamed a war cry and rushed Berret, swinging his war-hammer high overhead to smash downward on the assassin.  
Berret turned to meet the attack squarely. The brace blades from his right gauntlet snapped out to join the already deployed ones on his left arm. Berret thrust both arms upwards to intercept the blow - the blades crossing in an X to catch the hardwood handle of the hammer. The Shrike grunted slightly with the effort of arresting the attack and he felt his microbe enhancements kick in. The blades had caught the hammer's haft on their flats, with none of the three cutting edges in a position to shear through the wooden handle, Berret elected to sweep the heavy weapon off to one side away from him. The sudden shift of the hammer's weight in an unexpected direction made the man holding it stumble to that side off balanced. Berret chuckled in half mad glee as he followed up the block by quickly jabbing his left-hand set of blades into the man's exposed shoulder.  
The attacker screamed shrilly as several henta of the T-shaped double blades pierced his flesh and skewered through bone.   
  
The excitement of battle overwhelmed Berret; he found the bloodlust simultaneously sweet and bitter, making him momentarily forget his plight over the Nebari girl. He viciously twisted the edged weapons in the man's shoulder, purposely causing even more damage to the wounded man. The thug's accompanying howl somehow made Berret come alive, if he had to bear this strange pain he felt over Chiana - why shouldn't someone else suffer and share in it?  
The man's eyes began to roll upwards in his skull and Berret realized his opponent was on the verge of passing out from the agony he was inflicting.   
Suddenly the Shrike felt an irrational anger that the man was succumbing so soon.   
How dare he escape by fainting while Berret had to still live his pain!  
He brutally ripped the brace blades out of the man. Before he could sag to the ground, the ex-Enforcer stepped forward and slammed his forehead into the man's face, feeling his nose smash flat under the assault. The violence only went a small way in satisfying the rage and he hungered for more.  
Berret stepped back and snarled his growing viciousness as the new body joined the first two. It was over too soon, he had only lasted a mere few microts. The man with the makeshift lance circled at a safe distance so Berret turned his fury on the leader with the laz-knife.  
The Shrike retracted his brace weapons back into the armor, wanting to give the knife man a chance and to make the next encounter last longer. The tactical thing to do would have been to kill them both as quickly as possible and leave the area before he was detected by law-enforcement. But Berret was beyond giving a frell about tactics at the moment, if the law showed up - he'd kill them also. He wanted something to quill the ache he'd been holding inside. He wanted to smooth the burning of rejection and the hopelessness he felt, and he wanted to make someone else hurt like he did.   
These men created the situation and unleashed what he had had such a tight rein on. Now they could either bear the full blunt of his wrath or end his misery... if they could.   
He circled with the laz-knife wielding brute and considered that perhaps there was a chance that these two surviving men might luck out and find a way to end his torment. The thought sent an odd thrill through him and Berret chuckled loudly in mad delight.  
"Kill me, kill me, kill me!" he sang in a deranged melody.   
  
"He's frelling crazy!" shouted the spear wielder.  
"Shut up and try and kill the bastard!" the leader demanded.  
The knife man circled Berret once more making feints with his weapon. Berret countered by slapping a few of the desperate thrusts aside with ease. "You missed," the Shrike taunted.   
The thug attempted to trick the Enforcer by faking a wide slash and instead took a quick step forward with a drive at the other man's throat.  
To his horror, the Shrike stood his ground and caught his stabbing knife hand by the wrist - stopping the attack cold in its tracks. The knife man found himself staring in shock at his supposed victim, he never even seen the man move and now he held his arm struck in a vise-like grip. The wild glowing eyes that regarded him didn't belong in the face of a sane man. The ruffian expected to die in the next instant, but the ex-Enforcer's maniac grin grew wider as he inspected the knife. The metal covered man held the thug's hand and arm steady with his left hand while suddenly holding up his right hand as if he were showing the head gang member the palm... almost as if the man were about to perform a magic trick for his attacker's entertainment.   
The armored man chuckled insanely as he then pressed his palm down on the point of the laz-knife. The power blade burned through the leather of his half-glove filling the air with the sharp smell of the burning hide. The thug felt the blade abruptly pierce the flesh of the man's hand and the armor plate that covered the back of the limb began to glow red-hot as it began to cut its way through the metal from underneath.  
All the while, the man held the gang member's stare with crazed eyes and a lunatic smile on his lips.   
  
Within a few microts the knife's blade cut all the way through the plate to emerge from the back of the wild man's hand. He cackled dementedly at the spectacle and then turned his attention back to the mugger as they both gazed at the sight.  
"Pain brings the mind clarity," he said with grim humor.  
The gang leader replied with a strangled cry and finally made himself let go of the knife handle.  
The Shrike lifted his hand up to regard both sides of it and the knife stuck through the limb. The madness seemed to slip from his face as he turned back to his attacker.  
"But some pain only serves to cloud the mind further," he added with a somber look, as if revealing a dark secret of the universe. His fingers curled around the handle protruding from his palm until they made a fist. The blade stuck out the back of his hand like a spike. Without warning he threw a backfist at the gang leader, letting the knife blade slash through the side of the man's throat as it passed by.  
The thug grabbed for his neck but was too late to stop the strike or the flood of blood that spurted in a wild torrent from his severed arteries. He sank to his knees as he choked on his own bodily fluids.  
Berret watched the man for a moment before reaching over and yanking the knife out of his palm.  
He crushed the blade's handle in his hand, destroying the power pack, the weapon sputtered and died as he dropped it to the ground besides the body of its pervious owner.  
  
Berret flexed his wounded hand and then held it up for inspection. The microbes had been driven into an unusually high state of hyper-activity by his present unstable condition and were repairing the injury right before his eyes. The severe burning sensation in his limbs wasn't normal for his augmentation and he knew something was direly wrong about it. Of late, it had been the case when he lost control of himself but he didn't know what to do about it. In his more lucid times he considered that possibly the control collar had something to do with regulating his emotional feedback that allowed the microbes to behave normally.  
However without the collar, he was like a Hetch-drive reactor on its way to a meltdown.  
It had been happening more frequently and he'd found the only thing that made him calm, that allowed him to reassert his control over his veneer of civility, was being in Chiana's presence.  
Somehow, the Nebari girl gave him the strength to stay focused.  
A shuffle of feet to his rear reminded him of the last man.  
"Oh! You're still here?" Berret asked in an off kilter tone. "I guess I'll have to do something about that."  
The man was closer then the Shrike realized, he charged forward with his weapon at the ready. The homemade blade of the short spear slammed into Berret's side with the thug's full force behind it. The tip of the roughly sharpened metal hit one of the smaller overlapping plates of armor covering the Enforcer's ribs and skidded upward until it managed to slip between the plate above it. The armor worked well against pulse fire but its main weakness was the gaps and overlaps that allowed the wearer freedom of movement.  
Berret made an attempt to turn with the blow, but the spearhead still penetrated far enough to stab through the ballistic suit he wore underneath the metal and cut into him to reach a rib bone. He felt the blade tip nick the bone as he spun away, the move made the slash in his flesh longer as the spear withdrew and he felt warm blood flow freely down his right side under his protective garb.  
His attacker seemed momentary surprised he actually wounded the other man.  
  
The sudden unexpected pain jolted Berret even more then the stunt with the laz-knife had. It was somehow different when someone else inflicted it. Just as when Arckatius and the Syndicate had done their worse to him. It focused his mind into a pinpoint of rage; only this time there was a way for retribution.  
The spearman stood tight and held his ground, bolstered by the successful attack on the Shrike. His weapon never wavered even when Berret straightened up, ignoring the slash in his side to regard the thug with cold dead eyes.  
"Oh yes," murmured the assassin. Cold metal blades slid from his braces with an ominous hiss. "Pain is the mind clearer."  
The thug drew back when the Shrike extended one hand palm up, the blades reaching out at least ten henta passed his fingertips. The armored man smiled as he then beckoned with curled forefinger.  
"Let's play."   
  
Berret had started by slashing the remaining gang member's spear in to useless chunks... and then continued the assault all the way up the man's body until the Shrike had hacked him into uncountable pieces before he regained control of himself. Unfortunately, when his sanity found him once more he was standing over the remains of his victims howling in frustration that there was no one else left to vent his fury upon.  
He glanced around him stunned at the carnage he wroth and he stumbled over to a nearby vacant shop to sit on the stoop before his legs gave out on him. His weakness was partly because of the microbes' demands on his system and partly due to the realization of that he let himself slip into the madness again.  
He gazed at his bloodstained hands with self-loathing and considered that the pain from the wound in his side wasn't even close to a fitting punishment for what he'd just let happen. What would Chiana say if she could have seen what he'd just done? If she knew what a savage animal he could become without warning.  
How could he ever be so foolish to think that she would want to leave with him? Perhaps he didn't deserve to be free of the Syndicate if he couldn't control this part of himself?   
She had to be better off with the Luxan he concluded.  
He rose from the steps and found a water spigot on the side of the building. Luck was with him as it still functioned and allowed him to rinse most of the blood and gore from himself. There was nothing he could do about the wound in his side without removing his armor. At any rate, the microbes had already started to repair the slash and he found himself becoming hungrier by the microt as they did their work at an accelerated speed. He retrieved his cloak from around the first dead man and refastened it over his shoulders. He was only mildly surprised to see that the fight had brought no one out to witness it. It was most likely because the denizens of the shantytown learned to stay away from those five men especially if they were robbing somebody else - least they become the next one to suffer their attentions.   
He doubted anyone would miss them or call the law about the deaths.  
Still he couldn't let the others of the Leviathan's crew know about the incident. If they knew just how close to the edge he constantly was they would attempt to drive him away... or kill him.  
He wasn't ready to leave Chiana yet despite the dilemma she caused him. After she had healed and could see again then he would be free to go, not before. He had promised himself, given his word to her, that he would try. Well, he had tried and fate wasn't with him. All he had left was the promise he made to himself; he would stay until she was well again. That was all he could give her in return for the freedom she'd given him... and she'd made it clear that she needed him to be there with her for now.   
After that he would leave, to return to the Syndicate and let Arckatius reap the rewards of what the Scarran had made of him.   
He just hoped he could hold himself together until then. 


	4. Chapter 3

Chiana and D'argo exited the clinic and the Luxan guided the girl through the busy streets back toward the spaceport. He was anxious to return to Moya with the news they had learned of John and Aeryn's condition. That there might be hope they could be reconstituted back into living beings. He hadn't given the Shrike much thought and he half hoped the assassin wouldn't make it back in time to leave with them.  
Halfway back to the Transport Pod that hope was dashed.  
Besides him, Chiana paused for a microt and smiled.  
"You're here!" she exclaimed happily.  
"Yes," returned a hushed voice.  
D'argo abruptly turned in the gray girl's direction and noted that Berret had somehow materialized along side her from out of the crowd. He snarled a low curse to himself with the man's appearance and silently scolded himself further for not being more observed of the Enforcer's approach. Briefly, he wondered how Chiana knew he had rejoined them, and then considered the Nebari's hearing must have sharpened significantly more then he realized. Berret obviously hadn't traveled up or cross wind from them otherwise the warrior's keen sense of smell would have detected him. The breeze shifted toward the Luxan as Chiana searched blindly to take Berret's arm with her free hand. D'argo idly sniffed the air to be sure he hadn't picked up anything in the doctor's office that might have dulled his sense of smell.   
What his awareness told him in the next instant made him seethe with sudden anger.  
"You'll never guess what we found out at the Diagnosan's," Chiana was telling Berret excitedly.  
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" Dargo demanded with a roar. He abruptly stepped in front of the other two to confront the Shrike. The move was so unexpected that Chiana ran into his huge frame and let out a surprised squeak.  
"What! What is it?" Chiana frantically asked, clenching onto the Luxan's long coat. She looked around wildly but her blind eyes could tell her nothing.  
Berret calmly regarded the Luxan from under his hood, his ice blue eyes showing neither care or concern that the warrior was on the verge of losing his control.  
"If you have jeopardized us in anyway... I will kill you myself," D'argo snarled in low warning. "Now, tell me what you have done."  
"Survived," was the assassin's toneless one word reply.  
The Luxan's eyes narrowed with fury and he bared his teeth.  
"What's happening? What did Berret do?" asked Chiana. She yanked hard on D'argo's coat, making him look down at her and answer.  
"He smells of blood," D'argo hissed, "At least from several other people!"  
"Huh?" Chiana said. She looked around trying to locate the Shrike's position again. "What - what happened? Were you attacked, Berret?" she asked the air.  
"Yes," answered the ex-Enforcer. D'argo again growled lowly.   
"You see," supplied Chiana, "It was self-defense... wasn't it, 'Ret?"  
Before the Shrike could reply, the Luxan spat out, "No! We don't know that for sure with only his word! He could have started it for all we know... and now our chances of getting Aeryn and John back are at risk because of him!" D'argo stabbed a finger in Berret's direction, not caring that the emphasis was lost on the still blind Nebari female. He had had enough of Chiana defending the assassin.  
"You have been nothing but a liability since you arrived," the warrior accused the Enforcer.  
"D'argo..." the Nebari girl tried to cut it.  
"No, Chiana!" D'argo snapped. "We're talking about Aeryn and Crichton - our friends! Now 'he' has gone and killed more people... calling more attention on us. Attention we can NOT afford!  
Chiana's face grew more serious, she padded D'argo chest in an attempt to calm the Luxan and make him listen to her.   
"We don't know that for sure either," she countered.  
The Luxan ignored the black-garbed assassin for the moment and reined in his anger. If he and Chiana were going to make it with this second chance they had, he had to learn to control his anger while trying to reason with the woman. He took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. Chiana stared blindly at his chest, patiently waiting and giving him the time he needed to prepare what he wanted to say.  
"Chiana," he started in a low voice so only she could hear him. "I know... 'he' means something to you. That you shared a harrowing experience..."  
"He's my friend, D'argo," Chiana told him.  
"I know, I know," he interjected. "But so are John and Aeryn. And they have been your friends longer than Berret has been. I'm sorry to say... but this might be a time when you will have to choose who has your greatest loyalty. I don't see this working out to where you can have it both ways."   
The Nebari looked at him, open mouthed and slightly shaken at the statement.  
"I-I can't just pick one over the other!" she said, "D'argo... they're all my friends. All important to me."  
"Still... you will have to choose," the Luxan insisted.  
"I can't! You don't understand!"  
D'argo's face tightened. He didn't like pushing Chiana into a corner, but he saw no other way.  
"I understand," he said, "That Crichton and Aeryn have been there for us in the past through thick and thin - always! They have saved our lives time and time again. Berret is unpredictable. He is... dangerous, at the best. Who do you want at your side when trouble comes?"  
"Its not that simple, D'argo," Chiana told him.  
"I'm afraid it is."  
The gray girl shook her head. "No. No, it's not," she replied with conviction. "What you don't understand... where I was when we met..." she started and then left off. A microt later she went on with a slightly different line of thought. "When we met... he saw something in me that no one else has ever saw before... not even any of you. He saw a me that gave him the will to break free of his enslavement. It wasn't because I conned him or offered my body... it was just me... as a person. I saved him and then he saved me. Do you know what that was like for me? To have somebody see me like that? Do you know how I felt when I realized he was willing to die so I could escape?"  
"No, you didn't want to talk about it with anyone," D'argo murmured to her, "Not even me."  
Chiana gave him a helpless smile. "I didn't want to worry you... about what happened to me. I didn't want to let you know how much everything was hurting me. Losing you after what I did... then finding Berret and thinking I lost that good feeling I had about myself when I thought he'd been killed by the Syndicate.  
It was crushing, D'argo... I thought I was destined to loose every good thing in my life. Nerri, you, ...Berret, Zhaan. Now John and Aeryn. But I got some of them back. Nerri's still alive, you're giving me a second chance, and Berret wasn't killed. Now we may have a way of getting Aeryn and Crichton back. D'argo... I can live with being blind... if I can just keep what little I've gotten back so far. Don't take that away from me."  
D'argo felt a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach, knowing he had to convince the Nebari girl that he was right about the assassin. "I don't want to take anything away from you," he told her with all the sincerity he could muster into his gruff voice, "But this is not a matter of my making. The Shrike is a threat and as long as he remains with us we are in danger. The possible return of our comrades is in jeopardy as long as he runs around free murdering beings on a whim."  
"He didn't murder anybody!" Chiana insisted.  
"He's an Enforcer! That's what they do."  
"Not anymore he's not," the gray woman shot back. "D'argo, he deserves a chance just like the rest of us. Give him time to adjust and prove he can fit it with us."   
D'argo sighed heavily. "It's been weekens... and he's made no attempt to fit it."  
"He's afraid," Chiana said, "The only one he trusts is me."  
"And we cannot trust him," D'argo replied. "Face it, Chiana... you have to make a choice. Ask him to leave or run the risk of having him destroy us all. I have to tell you, before I let that happen, I will do my best to kill him or die trying."  
"You can't mean that, D'argo?" Chiana asked with a breaking voice.  
"I do," answered the Luxan with solemn certainty.   
Chiana turned her sightless gaze down at the ground between them. D'argo glanced over at the topic of their discussion and found the Shrike standing about ten paces away watching the flow of the crowd around them. Berret had to know that their hushed conversation had to be about him but he showed no more interest or concern about it then he normally did with any other thing that happened aboard ship. The warrior turned his attention back to Chiana; the Nebari had a deep look of concentration on her beautiful gray face. Again for a moment, D'argo had a quick feeling of guilt about asking the girl to choose between her friends. In the end, he knew it was for her and everyone else's good on Moya. If they ever hoped to restore John and Aeryn to the group, they needed Berret as far away from them as possible.  
The Shrike was bound to bring them the wrong kind of attention at any time.  
  
A number of subtle emotions danced across Chiana's face and then she muttered a single sentence.  
"Pass it on."  
D'argo blinked, not sure he heard what she said right. "What?" he asked.  
"Pass it on," Chiana repeated. "Its what Crichton told me to do one time," she explained, "He said if I ever came across somebody in need, I should try and help them... to 'pass it on'."   
The Luxan looked momentarily puzzled at what the statement should mean. When he didn't speak, Chiana went on.  
"Even if I didn't owe Berret my life," she said, "I couldn't turn him away if he needs me. John wouldn't want me to do that... he'd be disappointed with me if I did. Its not what he would have done, you know that. Aeryn wouldn't let a comrade-in-arms down either. She'd rather die then betray a loyalty."  
"This is not the same thing, Chiana!" D'argo put in.  
"Isn't it?" asked the Nebari. "We get rid of Berret because you think he's a threat... who goes next? Rygel? Froggy can't be trusted half the time. Wrinkles? Stark? I'm blind now and that's a liability, maybe me? Who gets thrown off Moya next?"  
"No! I would never do that! You're blowing this all out of proportion," D'argo protested.  
"Am I?" Once it starts where do we stop?" she asked. "I'm not doing it, D'argo. I'm not going to ask Berret to leave and if you cared for me you wouldn't ask me too."  
"Chiana..." the Luxan started to say.  
"You won't ask!" the girl repeated more urgently. "I have to see this through and help him. I-I need to be reminded of the way he sees me... I wanna be that person. Especially the way things are now. Don't you understand?"  
D'argo closed his eyes and tried not to become angry. He was torn between what he felt for Chiana and the loyalty for his friends. The Nebari picked the wrong time to try and become a better person... and the wrong individual to try and help. A scowl still creased his lips despite the effort.  
"Say something," Chiana pleaded after a moment of silence. One of her hands reached out to rest on his chest.  
"You're not going to do this?" he finally asked. Chiana took her hand away at the question.  
"I can't."  
The warrior sharply inhaled and stood ramrod straight. It was obvious now that Chiana wasn't going to let herself see his logical reasoning concerning the Enforcer. Try as he might, it was still frustrating attempting to get the girl to see the light about the situation.  
"Then you would willingly put any chance we have at recovering Aeryn and John at risk for him?"  
"No! D'argo..." Chiana sputtered.  
"Because that's what you have done."  
The gray girl looked blindly in the direction of the warrior's rough voice. "Wait... just listen to..." she tried to get out.  
"I'm done discussing this, Chiana," D'argo told her firmly. "You've made your decision... I just hope it doesn't cost us our two friends."  
The Luxan took a step away from her, making his disappointment known with the symbolic distance between them.   
"D'argo..." she cried beseechingly.  
He hardened himself against Chiana's tone and look of helplessness. He didn't want to hurt her but he needed her to get his point.  
"I need to be alone now to think of a plan," he told her, "If I'm going to save John and Aeryn I need to get started and come up with something..." he paused to glance back at Berret, "...before what little chance I have is ruined." He looked back at Chiana. "Your 'friend' can take you back to the Transport Pod. I'll join you there shortly."  
He turned and stalked away from the Nebari girl. Chiana felt the movement of air on her face as the huge Luxan walked away from her.  
"D'argo!" she called after him, the Luxan didn't answer, "D'argo?" she repeated in vain.  
She sensed her lover was gone, at the same time she was aware of the blank presence that to her was Berret coming up behind her. She automatically reached behind her to the Shrike, still facing the direction that D'argo had departed in. To her mild surprise, Berret gently gripped her elbow to let her know for sure that he was there. She realized that the warrior was disappointed with her choice, but for her there was no other she could have made. She hoped with time that he would see she made the right one. As soon as he got to know Berret, as soon as the Shrike opened up to the rest of them, they would see she was right about him.  
The assassin waited to see what she would do. A moment later she turned in his direction and padded the arm that still supported her elbow, as if she were reassuring him that everything was going to be all right.  
"Its okay," she told him, even though he hadn't asked anything. "Everything will be okay. D'argo will come around."  
Unseen, the Shrike raised an eyebrow in doubt but remained silent.  
"It just takes a little time," she went on.  
"Of course," the assassin agreed in a low voice. It seemed the only thing he could say to the girl.  
Chiana tried to give him a solid smile, but it came out troubled and weak.  
"You have to try and talk more," she pretended to joke, "Your voice is all dry and raspy."  
"I will try."  
Chiana nodded. "And maybe talk more to the others... so they get to know you," she added as she took his arm. "Things will get better if they know you."  
"I will try," he repeated.  
"Good," Chiana said, "Now take me back to the Pod. We'll wait for D'argo to return and come up with a plan to save Crichton and Aeryn."  
  
Rygel slightly adjusted the height of his hovering thronesled and narrowed his eyes as he regarded the sight before him. The Hynerian ruler tisked lowly to himself in disgust as an anxious hand abruptly placed itself on his shoulder. The unwelcome touch from the jumpy being behind him made his scowl deepen.  
"You see!" exclaimed Stark in an excited whisper, "He gorges himself after the kill! I hear the voices of those he murdered on the planet crying out from the grave. It was cold-blooded murder, I wager."  
The Hynerian turned to glance at the Banik.  
"The yotz with that!" he countered, "I want to know how much more is he going to eat? It's been nonstop for over half an arn now and if that frellnik doesn't stop stuffing his face soon there be no more food left for the rest of us."  
Stark gazed at the Hynerian in taken aback astonishment. "Don't you care about the lives that he viciously snuffed out?" the former slaved asked.  
Rygel turned back to peek into the Center Chamber. Berret had half the large mess table covered with an assortment of consumables. Many of the containers were now empty and haphazardly scattered about. The Shrike was still eating and showing no signs of slowing. As soon as he, D'argo, and Chiana had returned to Moya the assassin had headed from the Center Chamber, not bothering to even take off his scale-like armor before setting down to placate the microbes that colonized his body.  
"No," replied the Dominar dourly, "I only care about my share of the food."  
At that moment Berret cleaned out the last remnants of a container and dropped it to the table before picking up another. "Animal," Rygel muttered to himself.  
"That is worse than an animal," Stark agreed. "Those five souls..." he began.  
"Got exactly what they deserved," put in Noranti from behind the pair, "Or so I gather." The old woman's sudden appearance made the pair jump.  
"Must you always sneak around like a Glummet?" barked Rygel.  
"You should pay more attention to your surroundings," rejoined Noranti.  
The Hynerian snorted. "I should have paid more attention to my nose. Then I would have smelled you coming two tiers away."  
Noranti let the insult slide off her with a shrug like she did with so many other things from her shipmates.  
"The two of you be off now," she ordered, "I have something private to discuss with the Shrike."  
"You?" sneered Rygel, "What could you possibly have to discuss privately with HIM? Didn't your feeble brain take enough addling the last time you interacted with that abomination? Or do you enjoy being slammed into bulkheads?"  
"It is something of the spiritual nature and doesn't concern you."  
"Hah! That's a laugh," said the small being sourly. "But you're right, it doesn't concern me. I could care less about what you have to discuss. As long as he stops eating all the food!" He turned his thronesled around to face the corridor. "Come on, Stark. Let us leave Noranti... to get her skull caved in by Chiana's pet. Maybe then we'll get some peace out of it."  
"But... but...?" Stark sputtered as the Hynerian sailed away. He looked back at the old woman who made a shooing motion with her hands at the Banik. Reluctantly, Stark turned and followed Rygel, beginning to talk to Zhaan in his head once again.  
  
Noranti fully entered the Center Chamber and took a seat opposite the ex-Enforcer. She folded her hands politely in front of her and gave him a pleasant smile. Berret remained silent and only regarded her through slitted, wary eyes from across the table, not bothering to cease eating.  
"Are the pains abating?" she asked casually.  
The Shrike slightly tilted his head at the question, his eyes hard as diamonds.  
"Yes," he muttered grudgingly.  
Noranti nodded as if she were pleased with the response. "Good," she told him. "We called the microbe's requirement for protein consumables 'the reparation'."  
She paused and waited for the Shrike's reaction. Berret said nothing and only gazed at her with steady unblinking dead eyes. It was soon apparent that he wasn't going to rise to the bait and ask how she knew about the microbe's demands and why she had a name for it. Instead, he deliberately shoved another forkful of Hynerian kelp into his mouth and began chewing.  
Noranti pursed her lips slightly and tried another tack. The third eye in the middle of her forehead lazily drifted halfway open, glowing a cool relaxed blue as she leaned part way over the table toward the man.  
"I know you're not as cold and distant as you pretend to be," she said.   
This earned her a disdainful lift of one of the Shrike's eyebrows in response.  
"I also know what you sought from the shaman on the planet."  
This did finally net her a look of interest from the assassin. Encouraged, she went on.  
"May I suggest... you had the right idea in seeking out help, but that your solution to your problem was the wrong one? Perhaps you should look in the opposite direction then the one you were?"  
Berret placed the container and his fork on the table. "What would you know about it, old woman?" he asked in an emotionless tone. He placed both armored forearms on the tabletop and gave Noranti his full attention, though his demeanor told her his patience was razor thin and wouldn't last long.   
Most people would have squirmed under the Shrike's lifeless gaze, but the woman just settled herself more comfortably in her seat before going on.  
"Oh, a great deal I assure you," she replied. "I propose that instead of locking your emotions away that you take the reverse action and unleash them. Allow yourself to experience them before deciding to close them off forever."  
"And the purpose of this will be?" asked Berret.  
Noranti smiled and shrugged a shoulder. "So you will know what you're missing."  
"It seems like a poor proposition... and a useless one."  
The old woman's lips curled into a tiny smile. "Why? Are you afraid of what you might learn about yourself?"  
Berret's glare hardened. "I am afraid of nothing," he spat heatedly.  
"Except for what you might feel if you allow it," Noranti retorted. "For what you're life has become... for what the Syndicate has done to you... for what you have done as an Enforcer?" She cocked her head and held his eyes steadily. "For... Chiana, perhaps?" she asked.  
Berret surged forward before she could visually register the movement. It didn't surprise Noranti at all as she had seen it coming in the man's cold eyes and she calmly remained in her chair, even when the Shrike's armor covered fist slammed into the table between them and sent several plates and bowls flying.  
"I feel nothing!" he snarled just hentas into her face. "I am that which I am... and nothing will ever change that!"  
"If that were true," pondered the old woman, "Why do you stay here? You don't like it here aboard Moya with us. You're not at home... you make no friends other than the Nebari girl. Why don't you leave?"  
Berret backed away a little from the woman. "I made a promise," he told her.  
"And that keeps you?"  
"To break my word makes me no better than the Syndicate."  
Noranti grinned. "An excuse, I think," she said. "You're here because you care about Chiana. Oh, you tell yourself that you might only need her to help you work out dealing with your emotions since being free from the collar... but that's not the real reason."  
Berret hissed in annoyance and stood up straight. He reached over and seized up his cloak from where it was draped over a nearby chair and then flung it around his shoulders. Noranti continued on as he buckled the clasp at his neck.  
"The real reason is you're already feeling and it frightens you," she told him, "You can't stop it and you want somebody to tell you it's all right to feel and show you how to handle emotion."  
Berret shook out his cloak so the folds covered his body again in its shapeless shroud of black.  
"You're as mad as that Banik," he said to her with a tone of contempt.  
"Maybe," admitted Noranti, "But I don't hide what or who I am." She waved a wrinkled hand to take in the Shrike's form. "Look at you," she continued, "The first thing you do when confronted with the truth about yourself is seek cover. You hide yourself under metal plates and cower in the shadow of a cloak and hood. Tell me... do you feel warm and safe inside your little mobile fortress?"  
"Old woman..." the Shrike warned with a half growl.  
"Does it keep life at bay?" she cut him off, "Does anything touch you under there?"  
"Old woman... if you don't stay away from me, I will surely kill you!" the assassin snarled next.  
Berret had murder in his eyes. He clenched his fists and almost succumbed to the impulse to eradicate the witch woman where she stood. He forced the building rage down, taking a strangle hold on it as surely as if it were a living enemy. Losing control and slaughtering Noranti aboard the Leviathan would not bode well for his already precarious position on the ship... then Chiana would know him for what he truly was.   
Noranti watched his face, reading exactly what was going on within the assassin.  
"It makes it easier to kill doesn't it? Hiding in there," she said.  
"Its what I am," Berret found himself replying before he realized it.  
"So easy to be unfeeling as the metal," Noranti went on as if Berret hadn't spoke. "So easy to be as colorless as black silk... so easy to incise emotion from your soul. The blade is the most appropriate weapon for you, I think. It mirrors you perfectly, so shining... so cold, so hard... and so sharp. So mindless as to whom it cuts."  
Normally the Shrike had little tolerance for the woman's ramblings, but this time something in the singsong-like rant gave the assassin pause enough that his anger began to wane. Noranti was in some way scoring too close to home and too close to something Berret didn't want to think about. He took a half step away from the old woman and unconsciously gathered his cloak tighter about himself.   
"You owe her everything, even your name. But even the sharpest blade becomes dull with too much use," Noranti continued on after seeing the effect her comments were having on the ex-Syndicate Enforcer. "Even the best blade will crack if tempered too much. There has to be a little softness in the metal to make it flexible before the blade ceases to be brittle and becomes a useful tool."  
She smiled when she saw the anger in Berret's face replaced with a more astute look as he regarded her. She reached into one of her many pockets and produced a small packet she'd prepared especially for him.  
"Here, take this," she told him as she held it out.  
The Shrike surprised her by immediately holding out a hand to accept the small package. He did however eye it with some suspicion. "What is this?" he of course asked.  
Noranti gave him a tiny shrug of one shoulder.   
"Something to temper the metal."  
Berret closed his fingers over the packet and his eyes narrowed sharply. It was clear that he expected a more concise explanation from her. Noranti sighed in exaggerated aspiration.  
"It's a mixture of herbs... and some chemicals, that will help you... shall we say, experience emotions in a more normal capacity," she explained. "Completely harmless," she added a microt later.  
"I have heard how 'harmless' your potions can be," retorted the assassin. He looked as if he were about to throw the packet away.  
Noranti threw up her hands to halt him from discarding the herbs. "These are! I swear!" she interrupted, "They will only relax you and allow you to lower the mental blocks you don't realize you put up... or in the case of control collar tampering... they allow the brain neural synapses to operate closer to normal. You'll feel more in balance here," she said while holding one finger to her own temple, "For a short time."  
"Why should I trust you?" Berret asked after a moment of thought.  
"Then don't," countered Noranti with a toss of her hands. "Just throw the package away if you're afraid."  
Berret cut a glare in her direction at the barb, Noranti smiled back innocently at him in return.  
"I do think I should tell you..." she said a few microts later, "That should you decide to try the potion be sure you are positive you whole heartedly want to give the experience a chance."  
Berret frowned with renewed mistrust. "And why is that?" he demanded to know.  
"Because on you this will only work once," she answered. "Once the treatment has run its full course your microbe enhancements will make you immune to any more doses." She looked almost sad as she gave the man the news. Noranti was quite proud of her skills with herbs but this was all she could do for the Shrike. "After that," she went on, "If you want to experience normal emotions... you'll have to work at it the old fashion way like everyone else."  
She watched Berret, looking for a hint as to what he was thinking. He simply stood there staring at the white paper packet in the palm of his hand. When it was obvious that he was going to be lost in his thoughts for a while, Noranti turned to leave the Center Chamber and give him some time alone.  
"I've opened the door for you," she said over one shoulder, just before walking out, "If and when you walk through it is now up to you." 


	5. Chapter 4

D'argo hissed violently and savagely threw the data films across the large chart table in Command.  
"Is that the best you can do?" he testily asked the hologram of Moya's helmsman.  
In the grainy image, Pilot's arms bobbed up and down as he worked several of the levers and controls at his station in the Den.  
"I'm sorry, Ka D'Argo," Pilot informed him. "Moya and I cannot fully scan the military bases we've located on the planet without giving ourselves away. If they become aware of our presence, they will probably attack and attempt to recapture us... surely that would not help you formulate a plan."  
"No, it won't, Pilot," D'argo muttered in frustration, "But not having a detail scan of a base DOESN'T help to start a plan either!"  
"Moya and I are doing the best we are able," Pilot assured the Luxan.  
The warrior grit his teeth and then shook his head, he knew the Leviathan and her pilot were doing what they could to help create a plan to help the missing crewmembers. He'd been up on Command since their return to the water planet where they had been attacked. The Luxan wiped at his tired, burning eyes with the palms of both huge hands, trying to relieve some of the stress of staring at low resolution data scans for the last few arns. Scans that time and time again had failed to reveal anything useful.  
"My apologizes, Pilot. I know you and Moya are doing all you can," the Luxan warrior told them, "Its just so frelling frustrating! We've been at this three arns and haven't even the beginnings of a strategy using this information we have."  
"Moya and I share your distress," Pilot confided to him.  
D'argo sighed to himself and bent down to gather and resort the data films he tossed all over. Perhaps he should have found something else to throw around in his fit of frustration? It took too long to reorganize the scan charts every time. He heard somebody enter the Command Tier behind him a moment later as he gathered up the graphs.  
"D'argo?" came Chiana's voice.  
"Over here," he called to the Nebari.  
He straightened up to see Chiana being led into the chamber by the Shrike. He helplessly dropped the films onto the chart table. How much worse could it get, he asked himself upon seeing Berret.  
"D'argo," Chiana said again, "Berret and I have an idea."  
The Luxan rolled his eyes. "Chiana... I don't have time..." he started.  
"Listen to me," she interrupted. "We came up with a better idea then breaking into a place to use a Bio-storage machine."  
"Oh? And what's that?" he asked, a touch condescending.  
Berret responded this time before Chiana could go on.  
"We infiltrate and steal the device," the Enforcer said. "Take it with us and use it in a safe location."  
D'argo snorted in sour amusement. "That's your plan?" he responded with a denigrating shrug of his huge shoulders. "Go in and snurch the machinery?"  
"Well, more like a heist... but yeah," replied the gray girl. The bandages over the blind thief's eyes made the idea sound even more bizarre.   
"Pilot and Moya cannot get detailed scans of any of the military bases they've located. How are you going to plan a break-in when you don't even know the layout of the place?" the warrior asked, "Even if we could get in, we don't know where to start looking for the Bio-storage device. Without a accurate floor layout... we don't have a chance in hezmana of pulling anything off."  
Berret pulled out some rolled-up data film sheets and laid them on the chartograph table.  
"We don't have layouts to any of the military installations. But we do have the diagrams to the prison you were being held in when I arrived on-world," said the assassin.  
The Luxan blinked in shock. "Where did you get them?" he asked in minor astonishment. "How did you get them?"  
"I have my sources," Berret replied, "You didn't think I would walk into a high-security prison blind, do you?"  
D'argo had thought that was exactly what the assassin had indeed done. Berret just didn't strike the warrior as the type to meticulously plan a raid. The Luxan discarded the reflection for the moment and picked up the top data film. He was momentarily excited to see a finely detailed graph of the prison grounds on the first sheet. The exhilaration died an instant later as he recalled the carnage they have left behind them there.   
"We can do this, D'argo," Chiana insisted just then.  
He waved the Nebari girl and the Shrike off as he dropped the sheet back onto the table. These plans were next to useless to them now as far as he was concerned.  
"After the mess you left behind us in the break-out," D'argo told the Shrike assassin, "They must have upgraded or at least doubled their security measures."  
The ex-Enforcer gave him a mirthless grin that didn't touch his eyes. "Good, I am hoping they did," answered the assassin. It was at that point that D'argo was sure that Berret wasn't totally sane. The Syndicate killer seemed to relish the thought of going back to the corrections center... and possibly causing more carnage and destruction in the process. The only thing that puzzled him was why Chiana didn't see that for herself. Even blind she should have noticed the change in Berret's manner as they discussed the idea. Knowing the Nebari wasn't that gullible, he decided to give them a moment more to detail and reveal their plan... maybe Chiana had something more up her sleeve then was apparent at the moment.  
"What could be so good about it?" asked the Luxan guardedly.  
"Don't ya see, D'argo?" asked Chiana with a smirk of her own.  
Now the Luxan was beginning to have doubts about his lover's sanity as well. "No," he told her.  
Berret caught his attention once again and went on to explain.  
"With their increased security measures... they'd never expect us to hit them again."  
"They'll be overconfident," added the gray girl with another smile.  
  
"I still don't like it," D'argo said an arn later after the rest of the remaining crew was gathered on the Command Tier with them.  
"The two of you are just as frelled as Stark," put in Rygel from his hoverthrone.  
Chiana snorted in contempt at the Hynerian. "Yeah, it's a little crazy... but that's why it will work. They'll never expect us to break BACK into the place after we've just escaped from it."  
"And they're right," added Rygel, "Because we're not going too."  
"I still think we need a simple plan that involves just getting in and using the machine right there," D'argo said, making a point of ignoring the Dominar.  
From a rear corner of the tier, Berret moved forward to join the group in discussion. Stark jumped a little as the Shrike spoke, obviously having forgotten the assassin was present.  
"You are assuming that you can gleam how to operate the device in the short amount of time you will have inside," the ex-Enforcer said to the crew. "It would be a more tactical to use the limited time to remove the machine and figure out how it works in a more secure location."  
Noranti listened to the plot from the opposite side of the chamber. She silently regarded the assassin's toneless demeanor and concluded that he hadn't attempted the treatment she's supplied him with. It was just as well for the moment she considered, as the plan the Shrike and Nebari presented would require Berret to be at his utmost best if it were to succeed. She could see that there were going to be several problems in trying to restore Crichton and Aeryn that none of the others had foreseen. Chiana and Berret's idea to steal the machine was the most logical way to go as far as she was concerned.  
The Banik unexpectedly rushed toward the Shrike, pointing an accusing finger at Berret.  
"And how many lives will you take with this plan of yours? Hum?" he charged.  
"As many as are necessary," responded the assassin in cold unfeeling terms.  
"You see!" spat Stark to the others in growing excitement. "Killing and murdering are all you care about. You reek of death!"  
"Stark..." D'argo warned before the Banik could rant further. "Not now."  
"Nobody has to die if we do this right," Chiana spoke up.  
Rygel chuckled and poked at a data film the group had been reviewing. "What are you getting excited for, Stark?" the Hynerian asked, "If this floor plan is still accurate, which I doubt, that machine is on the top floor of a maximum-security facility... behind three Dura-Iridium doors. Not even he could get through them," Rygel explained with a dismissing wave at Berret. "The only other way into those chambers is by a small airshaft... and that frellnik is too big even without his fancy armor to make it through there." The Dominar smirked at the rest of the crew. "Their plan is useless," he announced smugly. "But don't feel bad, it was a good try." The last comment was uttered with a sneering curl of his wide mouth.  
At some point Berret had appeared at Rygel's side while he criticized Chiana's plan.  
"You are correct. I am too large," the Shrike replied. He bent lower to be at eye level with the smaller being. His eyes slightly tinted silver and an evil half-grin of his own graced his thin lips. "But you are not," Berret finished.  
Rygel's frog-like eyes bulged as Berret's insinuation struck him.   
"But the plans could be outdated now! They might have changed everything since our escape!" Rygel tried to debate. The Shrike's nasty smile grew larger.  
"They'll do for now... and if they are outdated, we'll just get creative," Berret replied.  
Rygel's earbrows drooped with the sudden feeling that he'd been out-maneuvered by the Nebari girl and her deadly pet assassin.   
"I'm glad you noticed the air ducts, Ryg," Chiana responded with a look of satisfaction forming on her dark lips below the wide bandage coving her eyes. "Which brings me to the next phase of the plan."  
  
The DRD that Pilot assigned to guide Chiana around Moya led her down the corridor in quarters by the cable that had been attached to it. The girl's fingers easily detected the change in tension in the makeshift leash whenever the drone slowed down to round a corner. She judge herself to be somewhere on the tier approaching John and Aeryn's rooms when she heard it. The murmur that she'd last heard when the human was alive and aboard the Leviathan. Someone had turned on the television device Aeryn had given John from their stay on his home world.  
She tugged on the line, making the DRD halt with an annoyed clicking whir. She instructed the maintenance droid to take her to the converted cell's doorway.  
The DRD did as she bid and her exploring fingers found the entrance already opened. Her curiosity built as she stepped inside the room and her remaining senses strained to scan the area for information.  
The air carried a scent to her and her face lit with a surprised smile with the discovery of her answer.  
"Berret," she said inquisitively, "What are you doing?"  
The Shrike didn't bother to turn, he already knew who was behind him. Instead he inclined his head at what he was viewing on the primitive device's screen, as if the new angle would reveal something fresh to him. A part of him found what he had seen there on the pixel tube disturbing.  
"Seeking resolution," he finally answered her.  
"Here? In Crichton's quarters?" Chiana asked with curious interest. "What do you hope to find?"  
She moved cautiously toward where she thought he was inside the room. The ex-assassin's scent grew slightly stronger to her the closer she came to him. When she decided she might be close enough, she paused and reached out with one hand. Within half an arm's length, her fingers brushed up against Berret. She silently congratulated herself for being so precise with the senses that were left to her. They had been developing evermore acute with each passing day. Still, the moist mix of herb under the bandage over her eyes gave her hope that within a few solar days she might have her vision back.   
She latched onto Berret's arm and was mildly surprised not to find it covered in metal. She drew herself closer to him and briefly considered she'd never seen him with her own eyes without armor. The woman had the feeling the Shrike had watched her approach, not making a sound or movement so she'd be forced to find his location on her own without his help. The others in the crew mostly helped her find her way around things, but aboard Moya the ex-Enforcer often made her find her way on her own when it was reasonable to do so. Forcing her to use and develop her other senses. Chiana imagined she felt a wave of satisfaction emanate from Berret with her success.  
She considered she might have been right about Berret's observation when she caught the tiny rustle of clothing at neck level when he turned back to face Crichton's television.  
  
"I have wondered about your friends," the ex-Enforcer went on to explain to her. "I speculate on who they are. Pilot has told me some things about them and showed me holo-recordings taken from the ship's log. I know of Sebaceans, but not of this Crichton's people. Pilot suggested if I wished to learn more his race, that I come here and consult this rather archaic device."  
Besides him, Chiana nodded in agreement. "That makes sense," she agreed. A light frown creased her features as a thought struck her. "Why do you want to know about Crichton and his world?" she asked.  
She could tell by his voice that he had now turned to face her.  
"The Peacekeeper I am not sure about, but I know Peacekeepers in general are a violent group. One might say that they and other Sebacean lines have evolved into separate species."   
"Don't forget," Chiana broke in, "You are Sebacean... and you might have been a Peacekeeper at some point in time before the Syndicate got their hands on you."  
The Enforcer's arm tensed under the Nebari's fingers at the comment and Chiana suddenly wondered if she'd said the wrong thing to the Shrike. To her relief, Berret's tone remained steady.  
"My origins do not have a bearing any longer," he said, "Because of the Scarran Black Syndicate, Sebacean or Peacekeeper, I am now neither. Who... or what, I once was... no longer exists."  
"I didn't mean to..." Chiana started to apologize.  
"It is not your fault," Berret cut her off. "This is the reality of the situation and there is no other choice but to except it." It was obvious to the girl that her friend didn't want to discuss the subject further. "As I was saying," Berret continued, "Pilot assures me that this Aeryn Sun is different even though she was once a Peacekeeper. This other, Crichton... this human, is an unknown factor. I thought... I should get to know the people that I will be putting myself at risk for," he said, "Whom it is that I may have to do 'unpleasant things' for." The acoustics of his voice changed again, telling the Nebari the Shrike had looked somewhere slightly away from her. "I do not like what I am, Chiana," Berret went on to divulge to her. "But as I said, I cannot change that. For so long I served the Syndicate... doing their bidding without thought, question, or even choice. I think for once I warrant to know the reason why I do the things I must do... and I need to know the price I pay is worth it."  
  
The Nebari's lips tightened in deliberation. In her desire to prove to the others in Moya's crew that Berret could fit in and be useful to the group, she hadn't considered that maybe the Shrike had his own reserves about taking the risk to return John and Aeryn to them. When she went to the ex-Enforcer with her fledgling plan, she really hadn't given him the chance to decline being a part of it.  
She slightly bobbed her head in affirmation with the Shrike's sentiment. "Yeah... I never thought of it that way," she told him. Chiana reached up and padded Berret on the back in amity. "I guess you do deserve to know who or what you're fighting for. You shouldn't just do it because we ask. I'm sorry... I should have asked if you were willing to go in with this before putting it up to D'argo and the others."  
Berret regarded her for a moment; selfishly glad for that instant she was blind and couldn't see him. "All you have to do is ask," he told her silently. "Ask... and I could not refuse you even if I wished too."   
Without thought, he suddenly found his hand reaching toward one soft gray cheek of the girl beside him. A mere henta before contact, he caught himself before he actually touched her. Berret hesitated a few microts and his fingers gradually curled into a fist as he inwardly cursed himself for his lapse. He lowered the offending hand and once again reminded himself that Chiana had chosen the Luxan. He had no business offering an intimate caress... even if she might have been free to welcome it. Chiana could not possibly accept him as he was if she knew the truth.   
Out loud to the gray girl, the Enforcer simply said, "I believe that is a reasonable provision."  
His tone must not have betrayed him to the Nebari girl, for all she did was nod in agreement once more.  
"Well, if all goes well... nobody should be hurt," she responded, putting all the optimism into her voice she could muster. An odd momentary disturbance in the air by her cheek had distracted her for a moment, but it had disappeared in the next instant. She chalked it up to a spike in Moya's air distribution vents and continued on with her discussion with the Shrike. "Anyway, the others are still debating our idea. We should know in an arn or two if they will agree to it. Froggy's not too happy with his part and he's letting everyone know that, but I don't think it will have much bearing on whether we go with it or not." She felt an odd movement in Berret's torso and knew he had just nodded his head in agreement with her. "So?" she inquired a moment later, looking to change the subject a little. "Did you learn anything useful? From Crichton's box, I mean."  
Unseen by her, Berret's looked turned abruptly grim.  
"These people on his world... I have watched how they treated you all while you were on their planet," he told her. "To your face they smiled and said welcoming things. Among themselves... they are suspicious, make contrary comments only to gain what they could from your technology. They used you while all the while believing you were a threat, and then openly discussed plotting against you in a number of the transmissions. In other broadcasts, I have seen where they treat their own kind even more ruthlessly." Berret suddenly stunned Chiana when his normally emotionless voice abruptly filled with venom in the next instant. "In a way, they are worse than Scarrans."   
Under the bandage, Chiana's eyebrows shot upward in surprise.  
"I think that's a little extreme," she told her friend.  
"Is it?" asked Berret in return. "Are you sure that this Crichton is worth resurrecting if he is one of them? Can he be trusted? Is he worth the lives I may have to take to save him?"  
"John's not like them," Chiana quickly assured the Shrike. "Not all the people on his homeworld were like the ones you saw on his TV. A lot of them were kind and caring... like John." She smiled to herself, knowing describing Crichton to the ex-Enforcer was going to be difficult. "You have to meet him in person to understand... to get to know him. In some ways he could turn what you believed about the universe upside-down and eema backwards. In a lot of ways he's the best one of us. If it wasn't for him I don't know where I would be now." She gripped the sleeve of his shirt harder to emphasize what she said next. It was important that Berret accept this part... even if he didn't fully understand for the moment what she was getting at.  
"I don't know where... 'you and I' would be now if not for him."  
Berret was momentary intrigued with Chiana's fervor. Somehow this Crichton factored in on the vague relationship between the Nebari and himself. How, he was at a loss for the time to understand. There would be opportunity later to ask about details, at the moment, it was enough for him to go on that Chiana connected Crichton to their present association. He still had to wonder if the gray girl's two friends were going to be worth the price he might pay in self-loathing afterwards. Or if it was worth the risk of having Chiana discover the truth about how he could become when he lost control. The Black Syndicate had crafted him as their weapon all too well.  
"This hasn't made you change your mind about helping?" Chiana asked him.  
The Enforcer's attention snapped back to the gray girl besides him. If this couple was important to Chiana, there was no way he could conceive of refusing to assist in restoring them to the crew. Even if the Nebari should realize how unbalanced he was without the collar to regulate his actions. He had hoped to make his exit in no more than five solar days with the cure of her blindness... and to that point, he had illogically allowed himself to believe nothing but that she would be making a full recovery. Once Chiana had started to hatch her plan, he'd had no other option but to remain and see it out for the long run... no matter what secrets may be revealed. With the Goddess' luck, he may be able to hold himself together, do what he must for her to return her friends, and then leave the Leviathan before anyone was the wiser. Already the old woman knew too much and the Hynerian and Banik were suspicious and always watching. The Luxan he thought he could handle, between them was simple hatred. What could be more simple to exploit? Berret didn't lie to himself about the perverse pleasure he took in twisting the warrior's natural dislike for Shrikes. Misdirecting D'argo's attention from the facts about himself that the assassin wanted to keep hidden. He should have been proud of the way he could almost led the Luxan around by his ugly nose, but the satisfaction was strangled by the fact the big warrior had Chiana... and her affections.  
Once he was away from the Leviathan and her crew, then he could turn his full attention to vengeance against Arckatius and his Syndicate House. It wouldn't matter after that if the madness overtook him... as long as it was directed in the proper direction. Let Arckatius deal with what he had created, let the Scarran bastard reap his rewards. Oh, how he would scream his pain... and make the Scarran sing with him.  
At least Chiana would be left with a good memory of the man she named Berret.   
And he would have done right by the person that gave him his freedom from the Syndicate.  
The mental picture of his armored hands crushing the life from the Scarran kingpin's throat brought a cruel smile to Berret's lips. His fists flexed so hard in reaction to the image that the joints in his hands popped from the pressure. He could almost feel the scaled flesh beneath his fingers... sense the Scarran's snapping neck vertebrae. He imagined watching the life leave the crime lord's eyes and knowing he'd want to witness it a hundred times over before his craving was satisfied. The weight of Chiana's hand on his forearm reminded him that the girl was expecting an answer. The debauched smile faded from his face as he realized he'd almost become lost in his mad driving desire.   
He appreciated again how truly lucky he was that the girl couldn't see him at that moment.  
"No, I have not changed my mind at all," he finally told her.   
His voice was calm and dispassionate as always. 


	6. Chapter 5

On the Command Tier, Chiana paced. Five steps forward, turn around, and five steps straight back again. She repeated the process over and over; positive that the deck before her was reasonably clear of objects she might stumble over in her blindness. The activity help calm her ragged nerves... and it helped take her mind off the annoying itch that had developed behind her swathe eyelids.  
"Any word yet?" she asked for what sounded like the hundredth time in the last arn. Absently her hand began to rub at the bandage over her eyes.  
"Nothing yet," replied Noranti in her ever-patient voice.  
Off to one side she heard Stark take a shuffling step in her direction. "Are your eyes bothering you?" he asked the Nebari girl. The tone of his voice held its usual hint of hyperactivity that didn't help Chiana's own nerves at the moment... even if he did seem genuinely concerned about her comfort.  
"A little," she answered the Banik slave. She forced her hand away from the bandage as she realized what she was doing and considered that constantly touching them could only make the irritation worse.  
"The itch means the herbs are acting as they are suppose to," the old woman added.  
"Its annoying, but I guess I can live with it," Chiana said, "Where's the Transport Pod at? The same place as last time?"  
"Yes," answered Noranti, "He is still waiting."  
"Dren," muttered the gray girl to herself. She reached up to her tunic and fumbled a few times to key her comm badge. The channel opened on an encoded wavelength to the cargo craft that had left Moya a few arns earlier. "D'argo?" she asked.  
"What is it?" came the scratchy static-tinted voice of the Luxan over the comm.  
"Any word from Rygel or Berret?" she wanted to know.  
"Nothing," answered D'argo's grim voice. "They traveled on foot to the prison's location." He checked his timepiece, "If 'his' calculations are correct, they should have arrived in the vicinity a quarter arn ago."  
Chiana let out a heavy sigh. "I guess we keep waiting then," she replied.  
"That is all we can do for the moment," said D'argo, sounding less then thrilled with the prospect.  
  
Berret dropped the heavy satchel to the rooftop's deck next to him. At the rim of the tall building's rooftop he rested one armored boot on the knee-high ledge and leaned slightly over to peer down at the prison that lay below the level of his current position. He smiled to himself as he set his occulars over his eyes and adjusted them to far focus. The rooftop of the other structure came into sharp view and he scanned the area looking for any new additions to the building's layout. Nothing appeared changed from the plans he had acquired. All the major security measures seemed to have been instituted to the lower floors where he had make his entrance the first time into the penal complex.  
Part of him wondered why these people had placed a maximum-security prison in such a central location inside the city limits. It would have been more tactically sound to have placed it further away from any major inhabited locations. Secluded, it would have been easier to defend against what he had done and what he was about to attempt once again. The natives of this world probably believed having the prison inside the city limits allowed for better protection and containment of their captives. They didn't take into account the perimeter weakness nearby taller buildings presented. Still, no matter what their reasoning, it was a flaw in the security design he was going to take full advantage of.  
  
"What the yotz did we come up here for?" asked Rygel in a complaining tone.  
Berret turned to look upon the Hynerian, who had given up his normal attire of royal robes for a flat-black colored jumpsuit that Noranti had quickly sewn for the Dominar's tiny statue. The suit had extra padding at the elbows and knees and a cut-down Peacekeeper web belt that held the Hynerian ruler's tools and weapons.  
"To access our way in," replied Berret in his toneless voice as he put away the occulars.  
"From up here?" Rygel put it with some puzzlement. "How the hezmana are we going to get from here to over there?"  
Berret stepped away from the building's edge and knelt back down to the satchel he'd carried up to the rooftop. "Can you fly?" he asked nonchalantly.  
"No, you frellnik," answered the Hynerian acidly, "But if you want to try, you can go first."  
The Shrike paused to regard the Dominar again with silver-tinted eyes. Rygel swallowed hard at the glare and wondered if he'd pushed Chiana's unpredictable pet too far with the cutting retort. The thought that Berret could very well toss him off the building should he get the notion, and there would be nobody there to stop him, or witness the murder entered his mind. His small hand eased is way toward the Laser Knife in his belt. Being too small to wield a full-size pulse pistol proficiently, the Laser Knife was capable of shooting a small pulse bolt a short distance. Many PK commandoes used them as back-up weapons as well as cutting implements. Rygel knew that his only hope would be to hit Berret in the head with his first shot. The armor he wore over the rest of his body would easily defeat the small bolt from the knife. The assassin had forgone wearing his usual billowing cloak for this operation, and Rygel could very well see that almost every henta of the Shrike's tall body was covered by pulse-blast resistant armor.  
To his immediate relief, the assassin seemed to dismiss him from thought and went back to digging around in the large satchel they had brought to the rooftop with them.  
"We are both going together," the Shrike cryptically replied, not giving Rygel a hint as to how he hoped to accomplish the seemingly improbable feat. He pulled out two smaller packs from the larger bag and a big collapsible metallic tube. He put the packs to one side and then unfolded a handle and several other gadgets from the sides of the cylinder. The Shrike did something to both ends of the tube and the hidden lengths of the cylinder telescoped outward making the tube even longer then it originally had been. Rygel then realized the device was some kind of portable mass driver that used magnetic fields to launch objects at high speeds. Though the device now looked longer than any other he had seen before. As he looked closer he saw the ignition chamber was double sided and off-center making one end a longer barrel than the other. Both chamber ends held shiny Macro-steel grappling barbs. The claws folded against the shaft sides to make the projectile more aerodynamic. The Shrike attached a spool of cable to the launch tube and after making the proper cable connections closed the loading gates on the launcher.  
"Are you frelling insane?" asked the Dominar as he realized how Berret planed on crossing the open-air gap between the buildings. Berret just smiled sarcastically.  
"You're the one who suggested we fly, Dominar," the ex-Enforcer replied mockingly as he lifted the tube and settled it over one shoulder. Rygel again swallowed hard as he thought about their height from the ground... the very, very hard ground below them.   
Berret pointed the device at the other building and almost as an afterthought turned and said, "Oh... and Rygel..."  
"What?" the smaller being managed to squeak out.  
"The next time you reach for a weapon... be sure you intend to use it."  
Without waiting for a reply from the Hynerian, Berret turned back to the launcher and set one eye to the sighting scoped attached to one side of the tube. A microt or two later, the Shrike squeezed the trigger and one of the grappler missiles was propelled at high speed by a magnetic pulse from the longer barrel end of the launcher.  
Berret maintained his sight picture of his intended target with the scope to guide the grappler. Halfway between the buildings a small powerful rocket motor ignited and burned for less than three microts, increasing the projectile's velocity suddenly. The cable dragging behind the spearhead played out faster that the eye could follow with a thrill hum. The grappler hit the opposite building at point of aim and went on to bury itself into the concrete structure of the rooftop. Once inside the claws used their own detonating device to drive themselves deeper into the masonry, giving the grappler an even stronger hold deep in the material of the opposite roof.  
Berret immediately turned to a place he already picked out nearby on their own current rooftop. Reversing the launcher tube to the shorter barreled end, he fired that barbed grappler into the wall of the stairwell alcove with the same results. A flick of a control on the cable spool made that part of the device draw the remaining slack out of the cable until it was taut between the two buildings.  
The last piece of equipment inside the satchel was a trolley with handgrips that Berret attached and secured on the cable  
"You can't be serious? Do you have any idea about how high up we are?" Rygel asked again. Berret gave him another half-mad grin. "I was afraid of that," the Dominar muttered dismally.   
  
Rygel made the twenty-five-microt journey strapped to Berret's back in a harness with both eyes closed tightly. In that relatively short span of time, he'd managed to call on all the major Hynerian deities and some he hadn't prayed to or remembered since his early childhood. The wind seemed to howl in his ears forever and it was with great relief when he finally felt Berret release his hold on the trolley's handgrips and drop to the new roof. He opened his eyes just in time to witness the Shrike deploy one set of brace blades and slice through the cable they had just slid across on.  
With the tension gone on the cable, the spool on the launcher began to reel the line back into itself. The Hynerian sighed to himself as he watched the wire disappear into the night. For good or ill, now they had no other choice but to find their way out of the prison building itself. Rygel took a moment to survey the area and had no trouble in locating the only entrance on the entire flat surface of the building apex. His eyebrows drooped at what he'd discovered there.  
"This door's made of Dura-Iridium too! You idiot! How do you expect us to get through it?" Rygel exclaimed in an excited low growl. "Didn't you check what it was before you decided to try and get in this way?"  
Berret gave him a contemptuous frown. "Of course I did," he grunted in reply as he unfastened a side flap on one backpack. "What did you think it was made of?" he asked.  
"Something we could get through," the Dominar replied contemptuously. "Now we're stuck up here until somebody finds us. We're going to end up dead or back in cells."  
"No, we are not," the Shrike answered. He had pulled out a dark metallic object from the pack and it began to unfold itself in his hands. An instant later, Rygel saw that it battle helmet that went to Berret's armor. It was the first time that the Hynerian had ever seen that part of Berret's protective suit and he idly wonder why the fool assassin had decided to play with it now of all times. He pushed the observation aside for the moment, more concerned with how they were going to get off the roof.  
"Do you mind sharing with me how we're going to get out of here?" he asked.  
Berret fastened the helmet to the neck ring of his breast and shoulder plates. Half his face was still visible through the opened helm visor.   
"One floor down," the ex-Enforcer explained with another unhinged smile that left Rygel's three stomachs queasy.   
"What for the love of Jovanna are you talking about?" the small being had to ask, even if he was afraid of the answer. Berret picked up the packs and head over to the roof's edge.  
"Over the side and one floor down," he said as he tied a short length of rope to the packs. After finding a window he tossed the packs over and lowered them until they dangled along side the glass panes.  
"You can't be seri... never mind! I know you are," started the Dominar as he boosted himself up to look over the edge at the hanging backpacks. It was then that he noticed that the floor directly below them actually had no windows at all. The packs were really hanging outside the window of the floor below the very top one where their objective was... two floors below them. Rygel swallowed hard again as he noticed how far down the street really was. "You have noticed we actually have to go two floors down, didn't you?" he asked the assassin.  
Berret looked over the side again at the comment. He looked back up at Rygel and shrugged his metal covered shoulder.  
"Whatever," he said without apparent care.  
"Just lovely," muttered the Hynerian glumly.  
  
Without explaining further, Berret had Rygel re-secure himself back into his five-point harness that they'd used for the cable slide over. The Shrike then reattached the smaller being to his back and after testing the harness belt's buckles and locks; he closed his helmet visor and leaped up onto the flange that surrounded the rooftop.  
"What the frell are you doing," Rygel screamed.  
"Quiet, Slug!" Berret shot back, something in the helm gave his normally emotionless voice an electronic quality. The effect was very disturbing as it gave his tone an even more sinister property. "Don't break my concentration. I would not want... to drop you. Or something equally as hideous."  
The Dominar could almost swear her heard Berret utter a dark chuckle but the sudden noise of metal against metal stole his attention.   
Without warning... Berret flung them both off the building.  
Rygel had planned on screaming all the way down, but the cry was abruptly cut short as he was suddenly slammed into the hard metal plate that covered the assassin's back.  
Berret's body made a quick thumping motion that was accompanied by the sound of tortured masonry. The Shrike's tall frame made another odd jerk and the teeth grinding sound happened again. It was then that Rygel regained enough of his senses to realize that he didn't have the expected weightlessness of freefall and that his harness had grown strangely tight... in all the wrong places.  
He opened his eyes and found himself looking straight down at the street below them, but they weren't plummeting to their deaths. Berret lifted up one arm and stretched it out before him, slamming it into the wall. He jerked one leg and then they both seemed to move forward down the wall about half a drec. He then slammed the leg he had lifted back against the buildings wall. Both times the annoying grinding brick noise happened.  
Somehow Berret was crawling headfirst down the wall like an insect Rygel then realized.  
The initial rush of fear left him and he began to notice the slight pounding in his head that was being caused by gravity causing all the blood in his body to head that way.  
"You're doing this on purpose," the Hynerian muttered irately. He knew that if the Shrike could scale a building's wall without ropes or lines... he could just as well done it feet first and spared Rygel the headache!  
Berret turned his head slightly to gaze back over his shoulder at the Dominar. Rygel only saw the angled faceplate of the helm with it slanted eye visors glowing a dim evil red... probably a device to add the Shrike's night vision further the Hynerian ruler considered idly in the back of his mind... but he knew that Chiana's damn frelling pet was probably grinning ear-to-disgusting-pink-ear at the position he'd forced the Dominar into.  
"Frelling madman!" Rygel grunted to himself as Berret continued crawling forward down the wall. He turned his attention elsewhere besides the waiting ground or the raving frellnik whose back he was strapped to. He looked upwards at the dark skyline and decided he'd keep looking there... as if he concentrated enough, he could trick himself and it didn't seem they we're that high up then.   
The movement of Berret's foot broke the illusion and he found his eyes locking on it before he could stop himself. It was then he noticed that the soles of his armored boots had sprouted three henta long spikes around them. He watched the Shrike kick forward and the spikes buried themselves into the brickwork. That's what was making that Goddess awful grating sound... and it was how Berret was scaling the wall.  
Rygel concluded that they had to also be made out of whatever the assassin's blades were to cut so easily into the stone and that there had to be a like set of climbing spikes somewhere on both his gauntlet braces that he was driving into the wall as they moved closer to the window.   
  
"No, Chiana, I have not heard anything yet," D'argo told his lover while doing his best to keep the growing testiness from his voice. It was the third time in the last half arn that the Nebari girl had commed asking for an update. "When I hear anything I'll..."  
He was cut off when the telltale light for the Hynerian's comm badge lit up on the Pod's communication board. "Hold a moment, Rygel is signing. I will tie the comm channels together."  
"Thanks, D'argo," Chiana commed over the frequency.  
The Luxan set the appropriate switches and Rygel's voice broke over the comm link.  
"D'argo! D'argo, are you there?" came the Hynerian's hushed request.  
"I read you, Rygel," answered the warrior.  
"We're all here, Ryg," Chiana added in.  
There was a gasp of relief from the small being.  
"Thank the seven Hynerian gods of fortune!" the Dominar exclaimed, "Chiana's lunatic nearly killed me! Several times! Do you know how he got us here?"  
D'argo rolled his eyes. If he didn't do something quick, Rygel would spend the next arn describing in great detail the imagined atrocities he'd suffered at the Shrike's hands. So he cut the deposed ruler off.  
"Well if you can still speak, obviously you are still alive. Do you make it inside the prison?"  
"Oh, we made it all right," Rygel replied irately.  
Chiana's more acute hearing picked up an odd gurgling noise in the transmission's background.  
"Rygel?" she asked, "What's that strange noise I hear in the background?"  
"Ummmm... You don't want to know," the Hynerian replied hesitantly.   
The Dominar glanced back over at Berret who held an unlucky maintenance worker up in the air by his throat. One handed, the Shrike crushed the life from the humanoid until his neck broke with an audible snap. The man's legs stopped kicking as the assassin let the body fall to the floor.  
Rygel covered his comm badge with one hand. "Frelling bastard," he hissed in Berret's direction. "You didn't have to kill him!"  
The ex-Enforcer's armor covered head swung his way to regard him for a moment. The crimson eye slits of the visor gave nothing away as to what the Shrike was thinking.  
"Frell you!" Rygel spat a moment later. He was growing tired of Berret's attempts of intimidation.  
The assassin barked a short electronically tinted laugh and turned away to examine the doorway leading out of the room they had broken into.  
"Goddess frelled animal," the Hynerian muttered and uncovered his comm badge.  
"Rygel? What's going on?" D'argo demanded to know.  
"Nothing... I just wanted to report that we're in," the small being supplied in answer.  
"Are you both okay?" asked Chiana.  
"As okay as can be expected. Nice of you to ask... unlike you did when you volunteered me for this."  
The Luxan broke back in before Rygel could affix any more retorts to the comment.  
"Did anyone detect your arrival?" the warrior asked.  
Rygel glanced down at the worker's lifeless body.  
"Not anyone who cares anymore," he responded dryly.  
"What?"  
Rygel cleared his throat and put aside the thoughts he was thinking. He had a job to do and the sooner he got it done, the sooner he could get out of this place... and as far away from Berret as Moya's massive hull would allow him to get.  
"Never mind. I'll fill you in later," he told the big Luxan. "We're getting ready to go after the device now. As soon as everything is ready I'll call with a warning. You just be ready to get your useless eema here as quick as possible and get me out of here when this place goes."  
He shut off his comm link before D'argo or the Nebari girl could ask him any further questions.  
Berret had opened the door and was scanning the corridor outside for any more prison personnel.  
Rygel jumped to the floor and grabbing up the smaller of the packs, moved to join him in the hallway.  
"Aeryn and Crichton had better appreciate this!" he muttered to himself.  
  
"Well... they're inside," said Chiana as she closed the comm channel.  
"Yes. They are," agreed Noranti absentmindedly.  
The Nebari's ears detected a low moan from the corner of the Command Tier. "What's the matter, Stark?" she asked, knowing immediately from whom the calamitous sound originated from.  
"Ummm... all ready there is death!" the half-mad Banik exclaimed. "We have unleashed a terrible evil on that planet. We must call this off before other innocents perish! Call D'argo! Call D'argo... and have the brave Luxan kill the Shrike before any others die!"  
Chiana sighed and would have rolled her eyes if the bandages had allowed her to. She really wasn't in the mood to put up with any more of Stark's ranting at the moment.  
"Blez out, One-eye," she told him. "You don't know that anyone's died yet."  
She heard the Banik shuffle toward but he stopped some distance away, knowing that even blind, Chiana could still judge distance by his voice to strike him if she were annoyed enough.  
"He has... I heard the unfortunate soul calling to me," Stark replied somewhat defiantly. "You are more then sight-blind, Chiana. He reveals in it, he cannot help himself... no matter how hard he tries, the madness drives him. The kindness you feel for him leaves you morally blind as sure as your injured eyes hide the evidence that we all see in his face."  
"Stark... you're kinkoid," Chiana hurled at the man in frustration. "Wrinkles, tell him he's imagining things, will you?" she added.  
Noranti paused at mixing the concoction of herbs in the iron pot she had brought up to the Command Tier with her and shrugged her ancient shoulders. The remembering Chiana couldn't see her, said out loud,  
"All things have a time and place deemed by the gods to die."  
Noranti sprouted the comment off almost idly and went back to tossing some more ingredients into her pot.  
The old woman dipped a forefinger into the substance and tasted it... then made a sour face.  
"You see," the Nebari then said, "Berret hasn't killed anybody."  
Noranti paused at stripping a few leaves off a plant's stem and looked up.  
"Oh, I didn't say that," she commented.  
Chiana frowned deeply and began to sputter.  
"I said nobody has died who wasn't meant to die at this time and place."  
"Ah-ha! You see?" broke in Stark triumphantly.  
The old woman picked up a large wooden spoon and started mashing the new leaves into mess inside the pot. "That does not mean you are correct either," Noranti admonished Stark. She absently began to use the spoon as a pointer to emphasize her lecture, not seeming to notice the green splatters of goop she was flinging about the command chamber. "The Shrike serves a purpose in the scheme of destiny just as we all do. Those that die, do so because it is their time and place. Just as should Rygel or Berret die on the planet, it will be because it is the time. If they fail, it will be because it is John and Aeryn's time and place. Fate has a funny way of turning out as it should."  
During her sermon, a big blob of the herbal mixture landed on the tip of her nose. Noranti seemed to notice it all of a sudden and spent a microt or two looking at it with crossed eyes. She finally gave up trying to focus on it and wiped it off with a fingertip. She sniffed cautiously at it, made a pleased face and then stuck the finger in her mouth. She swished the concoction around for a moment as if she were sampling a fine wine and then swallowed it.  
"Ah, that is much better," she announced to the room. She pulled out a nearby chair and grabbing Chiana by one arm, guided her into it. "Come sit here, child," she said to the young Nebari girl, "Its time I changed your poultice." 


	7. Chapter 6

Rygel and the Shrike moved down the deserted hallway. The diagrams of the prison indicated that a stairway lay just around the corner from the office they had broken in through - and where the unlucky maintenance worker had met his grizzly end. They had thought it best in the planning stages to avoid the mechanical lifts, as they would be most likely monitored by the prison staff for activity and could be very easily turned into traps if the power was cut off to them. Not use to walking, the Dominar had to scurry to keep up with the tall assassin's pace. Berret resembled an armored reptile in his protective plates and for all their apparent weight, the Enforcer moved silently through the building.  
They found the doorway to the staircase exactly were the plans said it would be. Rygel took out a handheld scanner and scanned the barrier's composition.   
"Simple low-grade foundry steel," the Hynerian announced. Berret grunted in reply and unsheathed his claw-like blades. "Wait!" cried Rygel in alarm when he realized what the Shrike was about to do. "I want to check for..."  
He didn't get to finish the statement as Berret attacked the lock on the door. Tortured metal screeched as he used his brace blades to slice through the entry barrier. The assassin notched the security device out of the frame and door, the access swung open on freshly oiled hinges while the section of dead bolt clunked to the floor.  
"... any alarm devices," Rygel concluded as he helpless gazed at the hunk of torn metal at his feet.  
Berret cocked his armored head to one side as if listening for something.  
"There isn't," he said a few microts later.  
Rygel scanned the door and frame anyway for any telltale signs they tripped a silent warning circuit.  
"No, there isn't," the small being confirmed a moment later. "But there could have been. You need to stick closer to the plan we laid out. If there had been an alarm you would have brought the whole frelling place down on our heads."  
"So what."  
Rygel's lower lip curled in building fury at the Shrike's nonchalance. He was growing quite tired of the assassin's apathy. "Listen, you frellnik... you may enjoy a chance to massacre a few more people. But I didn't get dragged into this so you could have fun slaughtering whomever comes along. I'm here to rescue John and Aeryn... and get my eema out of here in one piece. I swear to all that's holy that once I get into duct system I will leave you here and call D'argo for a pick-up. I'm sure the Luxan will have no problem with leaving you behind if there's a chance."  
The Shrike regarded the Hynerian for a moment, and then leaned down closer to him.  
"You'll have a hard time getting back to the roof to be picked up with just some explosives and no detonators," the assassin retorted.  
Rygel allowed himself a confident smirk. "Oh, you have no idea of how resourceful I can be when it comes to planning my escapes. Keep frelling around with the plan and you'll get to see first hand at how well I can take care of myself."   
It was hard to tell what Berret was thinking under his helm. A microt later, the Shrike began to chuckle in his haunting electronic tones.  
"It appears you're not as big a coward as I thought," he told the Hynerian ruler.  
"Never mistake a strong instinct for survival for a lack of bravery."  
Berret barked an even more unpleasant laugh with the comment. He cut it off even more abruptly, making Rygel even surer that the Shrike was far from being very sane.  
"Very well, we shall stick exactly to your plan."  
"How very kind of you," Rygel replied scathingly.  
"Don't mention it," answered the Enforcer in a humorless tone. Before Rygel could come up with an appropriate cutting retort, the armored man reached down and hauled him upwards by the harness he was still wearing. Without a further word, Berret slung the Hynerian over one shoulder like one of the packs they carried and entered the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time, he moved swiftly toward the next floor above.  
  
At the top of the staircase they found the high-security door they were expecting. Berret dropped Rygel and the packs to landing floor all in one lump. The Dominar was catching on to the Shrike's torturous games and was expecting the rough manhandling. He made sure to land with the larger pack underneath him and casually rolled onto his stubby legs as if acrobatics were an everyday routine to him. There was no way he was going to give Berret the satisfaction of knowing how affronted he was by the treatment by complaining this time.   
Berret counted the ceiling tiles along the nearest wall until he found the one he wanted. The ceiling was just out of arm's reach for the tall assassin, so the climbing spikes in the toes of his boots deployed themselves and he drove them into the wall to give himself a boost.  
He removed the tile and behind it they saw the metal ductwork for the vent system they wanted.  
"Ah-hem!" Rygel cleared his throat before the Shrike could go ahead and cut into the ducts. When Berret looked down at him, Rygel held up the hand scanner to remind the ex-Enforcer about the possibilities of alarms. A slightly annoyed sound issued from the man's visor, but he stepped downward a bit until he was able to reach the Hynerian and lift him up into the sub-ceiling near the vent.  
The Dominar quickly ran his scan and found no alarm circuitry hidden in the ductwork or surrounding walls.  
"Its clean," he told Berret. The Shrike was hanging below him and without a word he extended the brace blades on one arm to cut the metal. "Make it neat and small," warned the Hynerian ruler, "We don't want a pile of metal scrap or shavings on the floor below to warn anyone we were here."  
Berret turned back to his work, uttering under his breath, but still picked up by the visor microphone, something in Velkorian Sanskrita loosely equivalent to the age-old Hynerian riposte about telling someone to go teach their grandmother to suck eggs.  
Rygel allowed himself a momentary grin at unexpectedly getting under the Shrike's skin.  
  
The Shrike quickly cut the entrance hole in the ductwork. Rygel scurried inside and was extremely happy to see the assassin work the loose plate back into place behind him Even after Berret purposely shoved the smaller of the satchels into the vent behind him with more force then was necessary, he was glad to be away from the man for even this short time. The Hynerian gave the now unseen Enforcer a rude hand gesture and then turned on his small flashlight that was attached to his overalls by clips. The light showed him the somewhat dusty and gritty guts of the vent before him. Every so often dim places of daylight show up through the duct's floor, obviously grills carrying air to various rooms on the top floor.  
He had to crawl about halfway across the width of the prison building to the chamber he wanted that housed the medical equipment, which was located almost dead center of the top level.  
The space before him was barely large enough for him to crawl through let alone stand up in. Rygel was suddenly glad for Noranti's foresight to sewing extra padding into his black garb at the elbows and knees.  
He wasn't going to enjoy this part in the least.  
The Dominar sighed and then tied off the shoulder straps of the pack to his utility belt so that it would drag along behind him. At least he was away from that mad Shrike for a while he consoled himself as he began his slow journey through the cramped metal tunnel.  
  
Berret shouldered the remaining larger pack and moved further down the stairwell away from where Rygel had entered the ducts so if he was discovered, the prison guards might not find the cut out vent right away. He stopped two floors down and scaled the corner wall up into the largest shadow in the staircase that he could find. Or rather, the largest shadow he could make for himself after he rapped on the light fixtures hard enough to break whatever was inside the device without causing apparent outer damage. With a thought he switched his visor's optics from infrared to standard night-vision, and the red glow of the eye lens on his face guard faded.  
Several microns later he had just decided he was becoming incredibly bored when the doorway on that landing opened and two guards on patrol entered the stairway. Berret froze solid in his perch high up in a dark corner of the landing, trusting in the climbing spikes on the heels and toes of his boots he had driven into the wall to support him and keep him hidden in place over the men's heads.  
One of the patrolmen uttered a curse as he noticed the malfunctioning lights on that level. He walked over and tapped the device to no avail. His partner told him not to bother trying to get it to work and to just log the lights as being out so they could continue their rounds. Both men made they're way up to the next landing never seeing the armored assassin or realizing he was just an arm's length away from them as they fooled with the illumination system. They entered the next doorway above.  
It was Berret's turn to curse as they were now on the floor that Rygel and he had broken into. And he was laying odds that the large broken window and dead body they had left in the office would be very hard to miss. He dropped soundlessly to the landing and rushed up the staircase to the door. Just as quickly and silently, he slipped through the port just a few microts behind the men.  
At least he wasn't bored anymore.  
  
The two men efficiently checked door after door to be sure they were secured. Neither one noticed the shadow that trailed some distance behind them. As luck would have it, the wing that the Shrike and Hynerian had made they're entrance in was the last one the guards decided to patrol. Just as the returned to the intersection and where about to go down and check the final sets of doors, one Qujagan officer turned to the other.  
"Let's forget about this wing and just go check the security door on the top floor... then will be done and we can head back down to the office and relax for an arn," he told his partner.  
"That's against regs," the other replied, "Every door as to be check on rounds."  
"Look, there's nothing important up here anyway," countered the first officer. "Its all just office space. No weapons, no prisoners, nothing of interest. Lets just log we did them all, check the last door and head down and relax. Who's going to know but us?"  
Berret was glad to hear that the pair would probably be leaving without finishing their task; it would make things much easier if they decided to be lazy tonight. The more rule-oriented guard's eyes swiveled out on their stalk-like appendages for a moment, revealing several more sets of eyes, and then returned to their normal place in the middle of his face.  
"You better hope everything is secure up here," the guard finally relented and made as if to reluctantly follow the officer willing to cut short the rounds back toward the stairwell. The pair took several steps back that way and Berret forced himself deeper into a shadow before they passed his hiding place. The reluctant guard suddenly paused halfway down the hall with an odd expression on his sectional face.  
"Wait... do you feel that?" he asked his partner.  
"What?"  
"Like a draft somewhere."  
"You're imagining it," replied the lax man. "We're forty-seven stories up. There are no windows that open up this high, let alone in the entire complex at all."  
"I'm telling you I feel a draft," his partner answered stubbornly. Berret cursed again at the same time that the guard who wanted to leave did. The other man had turned around and walked back toward the wing they hadn't checked.  
They had only taken a few steps down the new hallway when the suspicious man paused again.  
"Do you hear that?" the stubborn Qujagan asked, "It sounds like noise from the outside."  
The other guard frowned. "Yes, I do hear it now too... and I feel air moving. You were right!"  
  
The pair quickly traced the disturbance to one office. They curiously opened the door and were faced with the gapping hole where the high-strength tempered glass use to be. The remains were shattered and littering the office floor below the open framework.  
"Will you look at that?" said one officer in disbelief.  
"What could have shattered armor-glass this high up?" asked the other.  
Both guard's eyes were bobbing in and out on their stalks as they attempted to take in all the details of the bizarre scene. They moved closer and rounded a desk and inspected the pitch-black hole.  
"We better call this in," one said.  
"Yes, we'd better..." his partner started to agree but he was cut off as he stumbled over something.  
He caught his balance, looked down at what had tripped him and gasped out loud.  
"What?" asked the other in growing alarm.  
"Look!" came the answer as the second guard pointed at the shape on the floor.  
The first patrolman's mouth hung open and his eyes drooped downward in shock.  
"A maintenance drone," he announced needlessly. "Do you think he was caught in whatever burst through the glass and some shards killed him?"  
The other man had bent down to examine the body. He looked back up and quickly shook his head.   
"He's not cut anywhere," he reported. "His throat looks to have been crushed and his vision appendages show sights of oxygen deprivation."  
"That could only mean..." started the standing guard.  
"... Intruders!" finished the still kneeling man.  
The standing officer fumbled for his radio, shouting into it before he brought it all the way up to his lips.  
"Section 41! Section 41! Perimeter breech alert, Intruders and casualties on floor... Urgh!"  
The other guard had drawn his weapon instead of his radio, but at the abrupt cut-off of his partner's radio call he glanced back up at him and started to rise to his feet.  
"What's wrong?" he asked urgently at the stunned look on the other man's segmented face. The parts that made up his visage began to tremble and sag away from one another.  
Instead of answering the question, bluish-black blood began to dribble from the other guard's trembling lips. There was a wet ripping sound and a pair of metal claws tore through the front of the bleeding man's uniform. A dark form rose from behind the wounded man, there was a metallic ringing sound and a second set of claws bisected their way through the junction of the man's neck and shoulder while the first set tore their way out through the side of his rib cage.  
The unlucky prison officer died before he could comprehend what was happening to him. The remaining patrolman wasn't so lucky. As his partner's body limply slid to the office floor, the Qujagan came face to face with the something that resembled the being that had broken the alien prisoners out of their cells a few weeken ago. Only this thing looked to be covered head to toe in metal scales and its eyes shone with red hell fire.  
He screamed in terror as the beast began to move in his direction. Raising his weapon he fired several time, only to have a few of his projectiles spark and bounce off its armored hide.  
The thing growled low and the metal claws slid back into its forearms as it rushed forward even more rapidly. His sidearm clicked empty as the creature reached him and seized him in metal covered hands. The officer felt himself being lifted bodily off his feet and that the living nightmare was moving again with him in it's grasp. The thing's fury eyes held him, as the breeze against his back grew stronger. He beat frantically against the apparition with his now useless weapon and his empty free hand. The firearm clanked futilely against the creature's hide and he felt the bones in his hand break as he repeated pounded his fist against a shoulder that felt like cold unyielding metal.   
Suddenly the beast let go of him and it seemed to recede swiftly away from him. It took his mind a moment to realize it wasn't the thing that had attack them that was moving away at an ever increasing velocity - it was him!  
He was halfway down to the street and falling ever faster before he even thought to scream again.  
  
Berret perched on the windowsill and watched the Qujagan man he'd just tossed out the broken casement shrink in size before he was lost in the darkness some stories below.  
"Oops," the Shrike remarked casually out loud even though he was the only living thing left inside the office. "The Dominar will surely not be happy with that."  
Berret chucked darkly to himself and moved away from the opened window. Somewhere inside, a part of him wondered what Chiana would say if she could have seen what he had just done. The black mirth died for a moment at the thought. The effect didn't last long as the demented voice in his head reminded him that the Nebari had chosen D'argo over him. She had asked him to help... and she had no right to complain about how he handled matters... or rather in the case of the flying guardsman, how matters 'slipped' out of his hands the voice reasoned. The dark chuckled returned just as the alarms sounded throughout the complex.  
'Comp - pan - yee," the Shrike announced in a slightly unhinged singsong manner as he headed out the office doorway and back toward the stairwell. The voice in his head started to dance in glee at the thought of more destruction to come.  
He paused by the twin elevators and ripped the metal doors off. The microbes made his flash and muscles burn, but the pain seemed to thrill him somehow. The lift cars had been called to the floors below him and were probably filling with armed man at that very moment. He quickly attached explosive charges to the thick cables and then strolled away. Near the door to the stairwell, he heard the elevator's hum to life as somebody below used them. He casually took out a remote detonator. Holding the device back over his shoulder, he waited a few moments and then pressed a button. Somewhere in the lift shaft there were several loud pops as the cutting charges severed the elevator cables. Next came the high-speed whine of metal cable uncontrollably unwinding.   
"Ground floor," intoned the assassin, "Boots, evening wear, and slightly smashed prison officials."   
There next came muffled double thumps from deep within the complex, Berret nodded his armor-covered head in satisfaction. "Very... smashed... prison officials," he repeated to himself.  
He keyed his comm badge a microt later.  
"Rygel...now would be a good time to hurry. We have guests coming... and they're not in the Terza Tea and Marjool mood," he said in a pleasant tone.   
He made it into the stairwell just in time to hear the pounding feet rushing up the staircase toward him.  
  
The captain of the watch reached the mob of riot guards massed on the final stairwell landing just below the top level that contained the medical facilities and the bio-deconstructor device. He pushed his way through his men until he located his lieutenant near the front.  
"What's going on?" he barked at his subordinate. "Why haven't you secured the area? Why are you all standing here?"  
The lieutenant, his multi-sectional face half-hidden under a helmet, simply pointed upwards.  
"Its because of him," he explained.  
"What the kireza are you talking about? Haven't you located the intruder..." he started as he gradually turned to look at what the other guard was pointing up at. Balanced on the handrail on the landing above them was an armor-plated creature with glowing red eyes. It squatted casually on the safety guard looking down at them seeming with idle interest. Its arms were nonchalantly resting across its knees so that its metal-covered hands hung loosely between its thighs. It indifferently shuffled some long, thin, and metallic objects between the hands that the supervisor couldn't get a clear look at.   
"Why didn't you and your men just shoot it?" the watch commander asked next.  
"We did," protested the officer, "The projectiles from the riot guns just bounce off whatever it's covered with. The rounds didn't even knock it off the banister. It just sits there looking at us and not moving."  
The supervisor cursed and then pulled the lieutenant in closer to him. "Have one of your men run down to the armory and drew a laser projector," he instructed in a low voice so the intruder wouldn't overhear the order. "Must I think of everything for you?"  
"No, sir," the man answered and than immediately dispatched another lower ranking man for the weapon. The commander gazed back up at the invader and took a few steps toward it to draw its attention. Trying to by time for the heavier weaponry to arrive.  
"Who are you?" he called, attempting to engage it in conversation.  
The thing let out an eerie chuckle.  
"No one," came the unexpected response. Its voice had a strange machine quality to it.  
Still the watch commander had gotten its attention; hopefully he could distract the thing from causing any more damage until the laser arrived. Then they would see how it handled a beam of irradiated light at near solar temperature.   
"What do you want? What are you here for?" he tried next.  
The creature oddly titled its metal head before answering, still passing whatever it had back and forth between its hands.  
"What I want... you cannot give me," it replied. "What I am here for... I am going to take."   
The men around him started muttering and becoming restless. He didn't want anyone to start shooting again and possibly force the intruder into moving too soon, so he ordered the prison guards to be silent and to retreat a few steps back. The creature watched them comply with dim interest it seemed.  
"Are you the one who broke in here before and released the outworlders we had in custody?" the commander than asked.  
"Guilty as charged," answered the dark figure in a slow drawl.  
The men began to mutter once more but the captain ignored them for the moment.  
"Why?" he than asked.  
This time the invader didn't answer. It just squatted there looking at him; still shuffling it's objects. The officer-in-charge suddenly had the feeling that the creature might have been grinning at him like he was a play-thing.  
"What are you? Man or machine?" the man inquired next when no answer to his prior question was forth coming.   
"Neither," it hissed out, "What I am... is death."  
The watch commander nodded, the thing was attempting to unsettle his men. It partly succeeded judging by the whispered conversations that bloomed behind him, the commander ended the talk with a single displeased hand gesture. He had to keep the thing on the landing above him talking. The laser projector should be arriving at any moment. "You certainly killed enough of my people here - tonight and before."  
"I've killed many things," the intruder replied. "I am going to kill a lot more before I am finished."  
"Why?"  
The creature's head jerked upright a little. Its red eyes seemed to glow a little brighter also.  
"Because neither of us are in a position where we can turn around and just leave," came the reply.  
Suddenly the watch commander knew that the invader was playing the same waiting game he was. It was trying to buy time for something else by keeping him and his men distracted on the stairway.  
"Perhaps we can talk this out," the Qujagan man offered. "No one else needs to be hurt."  
"Fine," the creature said. It ceased passing the long cylindrical objects around it hands. It held them all gathered in its metal-sheathed left hand and passed the other hand over the collective ends. When the watch commander could see the items again, he noticed that there were five or six of the metal sticks, each about the diameter of his smallest finger. He also saw now after the thing's hand had passed over them that the end caps now each had a single glowing red light on them. The creature casually dropped one of the metal sticks down the open space in the middle of the stairwell. The commander and his men watched it pass their level and continue to fall to the levels below. The device didn't appear to be large enough to be a concern to him or his men, but it still left him with a slight feeling of apprehension.  
"You and your men leave the upper floors now," the armored thing continued on, "And I'll let you live."  
"Why?" asked the leader, "What's up here that you want?"  
In answer, the invader dropped two more of the sticks down the stairwell. It remained squatting on the railing, not saying anything more.  
"Lieutenant!" the watch commander stage hissed to the man behind him. "Where is that projector?" he demanded. "The other officer whispered into his radio and reported back a moment later.  
"On the way," the Qujagan said lowly, "Its five floors below us now."  
"Tell them to hurry up!" snapped the leader. He turned his attention back to the intruder above him.  
"Are you going to answer my question so that we might work this out without further violence," he asked the thing in a louder voice.  
The creature tossed another metal object out into the air, this time giving it an odd spin with the flick of its wrist. A second one followed immediately with the same strange spinning motion. This time the commander could hear the metal objects strike somewhere on the landings below him and his men.  
"No," finally said the being in ebony armor as it began to toss the single remaining object up in the air only to catch it again as if playing a game. The red light made odd dancing designs in the air.  
Suddenly the watch commander knew what the metal stick-like devices were. Even if they were too small and thin to resemble anything he was use to, he knew instinctively then what they were. The way the creature tossed them out, the timing of each throw, the place where each had struck in the staircase. They could be only one thing.  
"Explosives!" he shouted to the group. "Get out! Get everyone out of the stairwell now!"  
The men began to rush for exits, some bottlenecking at the near doorway, others heading down to the next floor to get out of danger. The invader chuckled manically then and casually tossed the remaining bomb down the stairway.  
"You - You said you were willing to talk!" the watch commander yelled as he backed away until his path was blocked by men still trying to scramble through the door. "Talk instead of killing anyone!"  
The thing cocked its armored head as if it were amused.  
"I lied," it replied.  
Below them, an impossibly loud explosion took place. The building shook to the ground floors and then there was a hideous sucking sound. The commander could feel the very air in the stairwell being abruptly sucked downward toward the lower floors as if it were rushing to fill a vacuum. He briefly glanced back up just in time to see the invader leap backwards off the banister and disappear somewhere on the landing above.   
Before he could do anything else, two more of the massive explosions came in successive order. This time the air pulled at his clothing like a hurricane. Below him a few of his guards screamed as they were dragged off the staircase and sent plummeting toward the center of the blasts beneath them. The Qujagan's blood froze as he realized that whatever the unknown weapon the creature had used, there were still three more of them left... and they would be much closer to where he and his men now were when they detonated.   
He began to frantically claw his way toward the nearest doorway, shoving other guards out of his way as he went. Pushing several of them down the staircase if needed.  
  
On the final and last landing, Berret threw himself against the security door that Rygel was to open. Every possible blade and spike his armor held was deployed and driven into the floor or wall to anchor him.  
The last three grenades blew and the stairway was filled with a boiling sea for flame. Almost just as suddenly, the fire was sucked back downward as the plasma burned itself out creating a vacuum. The air rushed back to fill the empty space with hurricane-force, dragging anything not nailed down with it to be crushed into the size of a Falgonian pea as the last dregs of plasma imploded. Inside his facemask, Berret gritted his teeth as he held on for dear life. Inside his head, the voice howled with laughter and without warning the Shrike found himself joining in with it. The glorious death and beautiful destruction, the thrill of not knowing if his spikes and blades were going to hold their grip, or lose their purchase and send him to the same grisly death that the prison guards had just met...the lovely chaos! How much fun was that the voice screamed, wanting to know? How much now, did he finally feel... alive?  
  
Rygel had just finished cutting out the grill he need to allow him to enter the security office and open the heavy door for the Shrike. Just as he kicked the grate off, the five explosions rocked the complex. The first so surprised him that he almost tumbled headfirst from the duct. His finely honed survival instincts warned him to hold on and he rode out the last four without falling. Before he could do anything else, he felt the sudden drop in air pressure and then heard the familiar sucking sound of displaced air. Long cycles as the military leader of the Hynerian Armed Forces told the Dominar immediately what kind of weapon had just been used.  
"Plasma grenades?" Rygel asked himself as the pressure finally equalized. "Here? Inside a structure?"  
The feeling of befuddlement he first felt at who in their right mind would do such a dren-head thing left him as he suddenly knew without asking just who was responsible.  
"That frelling lunatic set off plasma grenades inside a goddess-damned building?" he shouted. "What the frell was he thinking..." he started to ask himself, then cut the comment off. "Wait a microt... if that idiot was brainless enough to use a plasma weapon, in a stairwell no less... the frellnik surely killed himself along with whoever he was trying to murder," the Hynerian reasoned. He stroked one stubbly chin in thought. "This is not necessary a bad thing," Rygel concluded. "Chiana's pet stupidly killed himself, taking all the timed detonators with him. We can't complete this insane quest without them, so no one will blame me in the slightest for getting myself out of here and calling the Luxan for a pick-up. 'Sorry, my fellow crewmates... but we tried and failed to save Crichton and Aeryn...' " he rehearsed out loud. "Let us mourn our lost comrades and leave this system as far behind us as we can starburst away from it." He nodded his head in satisfaction. "Even that dumb Luxan would have to see the logic in that move," he told himself.  
Feeling an overwhelming sense of relief that his ordeal was almost over, he reached upwards to key his comm badge and reopen the link to D'argo. 


	8. Chapter 7

"...No, there is still no more word from Rygel," D'argo repeated for what felt like the thousand time in the last arn. Normally he would have been annoyed with his lover's repeated queries for updates, but the Nebari had also given him something of some good news this time when she commed.  
"Tell me again, what exactly happened when Noranti changed your bandages?" he asked, wanting to focus on a more pleasant subject for the moment while he was forced to wait. The joy in Chiana's voice was unmistakable.  
"I saw shapes! They were blurry... but I saw them," she cried.  
"What did the old woman say about the treatment?"  
"Wrinkles said that my irises were starting to look normal again," the girl replied.  
"The outer perimeter of both irises appears to be returning to their normal color." D'argo heard Noranti put in from the background.  
The Luxan exhaled a deep relieved breath. It looked as if their risky trek to the Diagnosan had been worth it. His lover was healing, now if only he could restore John and Aeryn to the crew, he would feel that the others' confidence in him as captain would be warranted. He almost scowled when he remembered that the fulfillment of that desire hinged at the moment solely on Rygel and Chiana's pet Shrike.  
He bit down the sour taste that thought left in his mouth and turned his attention instead back on Chiana's good news. A part of him wondered how this might change their renewed relationship, but for the time being, he would take the good news for what it was.  
"How long does Noranti think it will be until your sight is totally restored...?" the warrior started to ask when an explosion suddenly rocked the image of the prison building on the holo scanner. "What the hezmana?" the Luxan growled as fire spewed from several places in the corner of the upper most floors. Some microts latter the actual concussion reached his position several blocks and rooftops away where he had set down his ship. The sound reverted off the hull of the big cargo transport like a hammer blow.  
"D'argo? What's going on?" Chiana asked, puzzlement and alarm warring with each other in her voice from the comm link.   
"I do not know. There has been a massive explosion at the prison location," he supplied idly as he click through a number of scanner frequencies trying to find a better view of the area without moving the Pod closer from it's rooftop hiding place.  
"Rygel? Berret?" the Nebari asked fully worried an instant later.  
The Luxan hissed. "Not now! No more questions... I have to switch over to the scrambled channel and try to contact them."  
The warrior flipped the comm over, silently cursing a blue streak as Crichton called it, to himself. If those two frelled this up, they'll wish they had been vaporized in the blast he thought.  
To his surprise, the secured comm sounded like it was already opened when he tuned in to it.  
"Rygel!" he growled, "Rygel, are you there?"  
The open channel hissed and popped a moment and then cut off without warning.  
"Shrike! Shrike!" D'argo demanded next.  
Only empty airwaves answered his call. The channel had been over-rode and locked out.   
"FRELL!" he roared inside the transport's cockpit.  
  
The dust cloud settled slowly, but Berret's battle visor's optics cut through the haze. The stairwell seemed to be eerily quiet suddenly. The malfunctioning light panel above his head strobed on and off, which made the optics flare and struggle to keep up with the constantly changing surrounding light.  
He pulled his brace blades from the wall and floor where he had buried them and willed the rest of the climbing spikes and smaller blades to retract into their armor housings. Free from the pinions that had obviously saved his life, he shifted his weight and several pieces of rubble fell off of his metal-sheathed form.  
He rolled over into a sitting position, to find that the stairway landing he was on abruptly ended at a sheared off edge a bare two drec from where he sat. The railings and banister he had crouched on just moments ago, along with the rest of the staircase, were now gone as if a angry giant had come along and whacked them away with a few enthusiastic blows from an equally gigantic club.   
Without warning, Berret found himself chortling with unsuppressed glee at the destruction he'd wrought.  
Just as quickly he choked the laughter off as he realized what he had just done. Every prison guard, every person except for himself, who had been in the stairway, was now dead.  
He rolled the rest of the way to his feet and moved cautiously to the crumbling brink of the landing to look over. The optic lens in the visor automatically flipped up into the helm when he wanted to look at the scene with unaided eyes. Despite the swirling dust, he could make out that the next three lower landings in the stairwell were gone. Ripped out and crushed by the imploding plasma blast. The wreckage, along with the bodies, had been compressed into the size of a grape, an impossibly heavy grape that lay somewhere below on the ground or basement levels.  
That voice in the back of his mind shrieked with demented laughter once more, what the look on the guard's faces must have been like as forces like unseen massive hands squashed them into base atoms!   
The few nano-microts of sheer terror must have been priceless... worthy of the best of Syndicate eradications. For some small sane part of him, time seemed to be lagging even though at the same moment he was aware it was passing normally.  
Slowly, even though he wanted to fight it, he found he couldn't help but laugh with the shrill voice... it screamed at him to go find more beings to kill, more things to destroy. The insanity called to him to bask in the glory of the chaos. It was like a slow constant slide downhill and no matter how much he clawed at the ground to arrest the fall, his progress into dark madness never halted. That distant part of himself wondered if he were finally losing the battle to keep his mind as he flicked the optics back in place over his eyes... the better to see the wreckage.  
The voice told him he shouldn't care about the moral right or wrong. He was what he was designed to be, the perfect killing machine. There was so much pleasure to be had in spilling blood... even more when the eradication was carried out with such perfect calculation.   
And he pleasantly found it was becoming easier not to care just then with each passing microt.  
Without warning Chiana's sightless eyes filled his mind and the echo of her plead for his help filled his ears. The voice pricking his brain screamed in defiance, trying to banish the Nebari girl. For the moment, the gray girl won, and the Shrike, with some considerable difficulty reasserted control.   
He still had work to do... and a promise to keep.  
Berret tapped at his comm badge. The channel opened as it was programmed to and overrode the Hynerian's already activated comm badge, taking over the link and securing a private channel.  
"Rygel... open the frelling door," the Shrike demanded in a humorless low tone, now as fridged as death itself.  
  
The Hynerian Dominar was just about to call the Luxan's name over the channel, when his comm badge squawked and the just opened link to the Pod severed. The device clicked and hummed as it reset itself on override.  
Rygel poked at the badge desperately with stubby finger, fearing that the Qujagans had somehow discovered the covert comm link and were jamming it.  
The communication device settled into an open frequency a microt later and the Shrike's icy voice made the Hynerian's blood run momentarily cold. "How could the bastard be alive?" he asked himself.  
"Open the goddess damned door, you miserable frellnik," growled the Enforcer. "Or I will detonate the Crinite device I have with me and blow the entire five top floors off this structure... and you along with it."   
Rygel groaned for an instant but then jumped down to run over to the security access control panel.  
"Give me a micron, frell you!" Rygel spat as he quickly inspected the board and then found the correct door release codes. He should have expected the Shrike to have a back-up plan in case Rygel did decided to double-cross and abandon him outside the fortified door and escape.  
A final sequence and the huge door cycled open, admitting the dust-covered assassin into the secured room.  
  
Berret strode down the short hallway like a conquering hero, while Rygel quickly reverse the door codes to close the portal behind him. The Shrike entered the main room and without a word, the brace blades from his right gauntlet hissed into view. The Hynerian drew in a sharp breath, fearing that the assassin was then going to murder him now that the important part he was needed for was over. All Berret would have to say was that he was killed in the fighting with the guards and no one would be the wiser - not that any of the others aboard Moya would care all that much if he didn't come back.  
He released his pent up breath a moment later as Berret spun and stabbed his blades into the control panel.  
Metal screeched as the rare alloys of the cutting edges sliced through solid metal, plastic, and wiring with equal ease. The board exploded in sparks and Rygel suddenly grew angry as he realized that they no longer had a way to open the security door again. If their plan didn't work, they were trapped there inside until the Qujagans finally got around to cutting them out.  
"You farbing idiot!" the Dominar exclaimed. "You've trapped us in here if something else goes wrong and the plan doesn't work. We'll never get out that door again now!"  
"Trust me," Berret replied without looking at him. "You do not want to go back that way."  
Rygel could almost hear the smile that had to be on his face in the man's electronic toned voice. "Not that there's probably much of a stairwell left after you blew off several plasma grenades inside it. But you probably could have scaled us down the well's wall if we had no other choice."  
  
Berret seemed to be ignoring his complaint as he unslung the bag from one shoulder. He opened the pouch and began to lie out detonators for the explosive charges.   
"And what the frell is a Crinite device, anyway?" the smaller being demanded to know.  
This time the Shrike did look up at him for a moment. Even with the featureless faceplate, Rygel still got the feeling the Enforcer was regarding him in some type of twisted amusement from under it.  
"Nothing... I made it up," he replied before going back to his task.   
"You Garrb'ta!" Rygel cursed, "I knew you were bluffing."  
"Make yourself useful, Dominar," Berret simply replied. "And assemble the cutting charges. You do know how to shape demolition charges and the proper sequence for cutting a hole, don't you?" Berret asked in an obvious patronizing tone.  
Rygel allowed himself a superior snort. He wasn't going to let the bastard Shrike goad him so easily.  
"I was well trained in explosive ordinance a hundred cycles before you were a gleam in the eye of whatever monstrosity that spawned you," he countered. "Just stay out of my way. I don't want you frelling up our one chance for escape now that you nickfattled us with the door."  
Berret rose from the assortment of devices as Rygel added his cargo of explosives to the organized pile.  
It would have been too dangerous to transport the charges already assembled, so the task had to be done on site... correctly and as quickly as possible.  
"Then I shall leave you to the task," Berret said. "Meanwhile, I will use the laser torch to cut the device free from its floor mounts."  
"You do that..." grumbled the Hynerian. "Just don't take all frelling solar day about it."  
  
Berret left Rygel, and moved into the next chamber to get his first look at the reconstruction machine.  
It was roughly a little more than half the size of a Prowler with an inset monitoring station where the operator stood. At one end it had a folded aperture arm that was obviously where the beam it fired to perform its function emitted from after it was targeted. Luckily, the machine was in storage mode with most of the protective panels and covers in place.   
The Shrike took a moment to inspect the device more closely to verify where the mounts and structural framework was strongest. He found the power cable and the first undertaking he performed was to cut it clear with the torch, leaving as much of the wiring harness attached as possible to work with later.  
Next he moved to several places he had identified as being the strongest positions in the machines framework, and installed several self-welding cargo clasp connections. Before the smoke and smell of the suddenly heated metals faded, the assassin was back on the floor using the laser torch once more to cut away the steel mounts that secured the reconstruction device to the floor beneath it.  
No sooner had he cut the last of the mounts, then Rygel waddled carefully into the chamber with both sacks of charges over his shoulders.  
"Good, you're done," he said as Berret tossed aside the laser torch now that it usefulness was over. They would be taking nothing that wasn't necessary back with them. While the device itself shouldn't be much of a problem for the heavy cargo transport D'argo was piloting, the speed in which they need to move during their escape was critical. Not only did they have to get off planet with the machine, they had to make the run back to Moya like a Whoisma out of hezmana... and every micro-drannit that weighted them down counted toward whither they succeeded or failed. The Pod itself had been stripped of all nonessential equipment and systems to make it lighter.  
Rygel smirked to himself with the thought that he could think of something else they could leave behind as he gazed at Berret.  
If the Shrike knew what he was probably thinking, he gave no sign.  
  
"Are you ready to set the charges?" the Enforcer asked.  
Rygel nodded and passed him a bag. Berret paused only long enough to boost the Hynerian up to a roof support beam so that he could crawl along it to place his devices.  
"The charges are clearly marked," Rygel warned, "Do not mix them up. Remember, we want the ceiling to blow up and then out. Get them backwards... and we bring the entire roof down on us and the machine."  
Berret let out an electronic tinted chuckle from under his battle helm.  
"I will endeavor to place them correctly, Dominar," he said. Something about the comment let Rygel to believe that the Shrike probably could care less if the roof blew out in the exact manner.  
"See that you frelling do!" the Hynerian spat back.  
Within a hundred microts all the cutting charges were laid out. Rygel did his best to recheck them quickly but there was no way to be sure of them all with the time they had.   
"That's as good as it gets," the Dominar said doggedly.  
"Then call the Luxan and tell him we are ready," Berret ordered while he busied himself programming the remote main detonator switch.  
Rygel sighed one last time and wondered if he were just mere microts from his death. He keyed his comm badge open.  
"D'argo?" he asked.  
"RYGEL!" came the warrior's instant shouted reply. "What is happening?" he demanded to know.  
"We're ready to blow the roof. The device is set to travel," he reported. "Where are you?"  
The background noise in the channel, told the Hynerian that D'argo had just powered up the Pod's engines and lifted off.   
"I'm on my way to the prison now," he responded. "How soon until you detonate the roof?"  
Rygel glanced up at the Shrike for confirmation. Berret held up all the fingers on one armored hand and flicked them three times.  
"Fifteen microts," Rygel answered the warrior.  
"Understood... I'll be there in less than twenty. Good luck, out."  
The channel closed and the Luxan was gone off the air.   
"I suggest you run, Dominar," said Berret as he closed the final switch and started the countdown.  
The Hynerian gasped in surprise as Berret dropped the now useless main switch after the last command was given. The remote had sent its command signal and there was no calling it back now.  
The small being turned back toward the short hallway that was the only place to hide and take cover in the area from the blast. He now cursed his short legs and wondered if he was going to make it that far to the limited safety before the explosives went off.  
Rygel had taken only several steps toward relative protection when he suddenly felt himself yanked upward from the floor. His first thought was the charges went off prematurely and that he had been caught in the detonation. An instant later he realized that Berret had come up behind him and had grabbed him up by his equipment harness. Hauling the Hynerian along with him, the tall Shrike raced toward the far end of the hallway.   
  
They dead-ended at the massive security door. Without warning, Berret carelessly tossed Rygel into a corner. Before the Hynerian ruler could automatically complain about the treatment, a great weight crashed down on him and smashed his small form even harder against the wall; driving half the wind out of him.   
It took the Hynerian a moment to figure out that Berret had thrown his metal-covered body over him. If he didn't know better, Rygel might have thought that the Shrike meant to use his armored form to give him protection from the blast.  
It was most likely that the clumsy assassin had dived for cover in his own haste for self-preservation and had not realized that he was doing Rygel a service by covering him also.  
Oh well, his negligence is my gain, the Dominar thought as he felt cold unyielding metal all around him.  
He remembered from his early military demolition training to open his mouth to equalize the pressure in his ears; otherwise the blast pressure wave could perforate his eardrums. Something he was sure the Shrike didn't have to worry about locked inside his metallic shell.  
  
They didn't have long to wait as the floor suddenly jumped under them and the thump of displaced air reached them a nano-microt behind the lurch. Rygel cursed as something tossed Berret hard into him.  
Rygel made himself count to ten and before he reached nine, he felt Berret roll away from him.  
The Hynerian rolled over himself and looked up in time to see a thick dust cloud spin down the hallway toward them.  
"Let's go," said Berret's voice. He was already becoming just a dim shadow as he moved off into the dust storm. Rygel uttered another time-honored Hynerian curse about the Shrike's lineage. He yanked out a section of square cloth that Noranti insisted he keep in a spare pocket and tied it around his face like a mask as best as he was able so he could breathe while attempting to follow the Enforcer back into the chamber.  
To himself, he blessed the annoying old woman's persistence that he keep the cloth with him though she wouldn't tell him why she thought he should have it. Still, he'd be damned to hezmana if he'd ever admit to the odd female that it had come in handy after all.  
  
To the Hynerian ruler's relief, he found the air clearing the closer he came to the medical device.   
He arrived to find Berret standing under a perfectly position hole in the ceiling. The machine had sat in the eye of the shaped blast and had remained undamaged except for a light coving of plaster dust.   
At first the Hynerian ruler didn't quite understand the low wail he was hearing. It seemed to him for a moment that maybe his hearing had been damaged during the blast despite his precaution, judging by the constant howling in his ears.  
Looking upward again, he saw the Luxan had arrived and the dim outline of the Cargo Transport without running lights hovering over the hole they'd made in the roof. The howling was the whine the thrusters made as D'argo held the craft in position.  
The transport's cargo bay doors dropped opened, suddenly flooding the area with the glare from the cargo bay's loading lamps. Several cables dropped from the lit hole down to them.  
The pair on the ground worked fast and secured the cable hooks to the cargo connections that had been welded on to the machine's framework. Both Rygel and Berret finished hooking the last cables onto the top of the device. Without being told, Rygel slammed anxiously at his comm badge to reopen the link.  
"They're set, D'argo!" he cried over the whine of engines. "Go! Haul us in!"  
The slack in the cables abruptly took in as the winches activated inside the Pod. The de-constructor device with its two passengers was just as suddenly jerked upward with a groan. With the swift whipping motion, Rygel lost his grip on the cable he was holding on to. With a startled cry he began to topple over as the machine cleared the roof opening. The Transport Pod began to assent into the night sky even while the cargo was being still hauled aboard.  
Rygel saw the edge of the prison building pass under him as the ship took off. He was going to fall and miss the building totally now... and this time surely plunge to the streets far below.  
He made one last frantic grab for anything... and missed.  
He felt gravity start to take him and just as suddenly his freefall came to a sudden jerking halt.  
Rygel looked upward to see what had stopped him, only to find himself looking into the glowing red orbs of the Shrike's optics. Berret leaned out into space over him, holding onto a cable with his far hand.  
The other had its fingers wrapped around Rygel's ankle.  
The assassin hauled them both back up on top of the machine, just as it slammed up into the cargo bay. The bay doors closed with a metallic slap under them and the device tilted sharply on the cables as the craft nosed upward in a rush. The harsh thrum of engines being pushed too hard came to them as D'argo sent the Pod screaming toward orbit and its meeting with Moya behind one of the planet's three moons.  
It was then that the Dominar found that he had started laughing with relief somewhere along the line. He wasn't going to die after all... and they had actually pulled the frelling insane plan off!  
It took another moment to realize that Berret was laughing also.  
And Rygel shivered because he realized the Enforcer's mirth had little to do with the reasons for his own.  
  
D'argo drove the Pod hard in their mad rush to escape. The ship cleared the planet's atmosphere well before the rearward scanners told him the defense force had launched interceptors in pursuit. One of the systems they had stripped out was the secondary cooling system from the drive unit. Already the engines were redlining and he was mixing the fuel too richly, attempting to add speed. The induction manifolds and the charge plates were going to be nothing more than a pile of slag after they made it home to Moya.  
The DRDs would have to overhaul the Pod before it could be used again after this trip... assuming that it didn't blow up or that he crashed it first. He steered a straight course for the farthest moon where Moya waited. The warrior judged that barring a malfunction, they should make it to the Leviathan with enough time to starburst away before the fighters arrived. It seemed that the defense minister had not taken into account a possible escape by spacecraft in the trouble that was happening at the prison. Thus their defense fleet had been caught unprepared to give chase in time. 


	9. Chapter 8

A warning light on the control board caught his attention. The thruster fuel cells had not been totally filled in order to reduce even more weight, and the telltale was announcing that the cells were almost depleted and may not have enough fuel left for braking the Pod on landing. The Luxan idly snarled a curse; there was nothing he could do about the problem now but hope for the best.   
"Pilot!" he half-shouted over the comm link. "We are in route. Prepare for immediate starburst as soon as the Pod is in the landing bay."  
"We have you on scanners, Captain D'argo," the helmsman replied. "Moya is de-orbiting now and setting a rendezvous vector. We are charging for starburst now."  
In the background of Pilot's channel, the Luxan could hear Chiana shouting orders to the rest of the crew on-board.  
"And Pilot... we are coming in hot! The pod's braking system may be out, so have Moya prepare the landing bay for a hard landing. Seal all the hanger and maintenance bay doors, and transfer all reserve fuel in that bay to the holding tanks in bay two!" D'argo continued.   
"Understood and under way, Captain," responded Pilot.  
"D'argo? Is everything okay?" asked Chiana over the link a split microt later.  
"Not now!" the Luxan snapped harder then he meant too. Right then he needed to concentrate on flying the Pod and then the coming landing on a ship that was on the verge of entering into starburst.  
  
Less than a hundred microts later, the Cargo Transport rushed around the north polar hemisphere of the moon. Only a few metra away from the craft, Moya sailed stately away from them, pointed out-system. The cargo ship waved and bobbed as the warrior lined it up with the massive landing bay port in the Leviathan's rear hull.  
Almost too fast the Pod screamed by Moya's joined tails that were even then cracking with unreleased starburst energy. The bay outer doors grew larger as the craft raced toward them at dangerous speed. Out of the corner of his eyes, D'argo could see that huge space doors already starting to cycle closed as Moya timed their arrival. In a flash the Pod was by them, leaving only a split microt of rumble in his ears as the space doors shut closed.  
Just as quickly he was in the cavernous landing bay and running out of room. Several docking web projectors sped along their rails trying to keep up and attempting to snare the transport in their beams. Only two of the webs managed to lock on to the speeding ship with negligible effect.   
D'argo growled and set himself to battle the stick and control board for command of the pod. He full-reversed the engines, not caring if the maneuver tore them from their housings, as long as they slowed the craft down. He was thrown forward an instant later, only keeping his seat due to his safety belt.  
The Cargo ship bucked and lurched for the landing deck gracelessly. As it neared the deck, D'argo muttered a prayer and tripped the braking thrusters on full. The thrusters under the belly of the Pod and at the nose fired up and ran for three or four microts before dying. Not enough for a correct landing but enough to put the transport into a slide on the landing deck without letting it bounce air born again.  
The ship started to skid and before the slide could spin out of control and tumble the Pod, the Luxan had one last trick up his sleeve. He reached up and activated the magnetic landing skid locks.  
The Pod jerked even harder that time as the metal landing skids under the craft tried to lock to the deck.  
The slide slowed even further, but D'argo could hear pieces of the skids been torn off. Sparks filled the forward view port as the rails disintegrated.  
The gambled paid off as the crash netting just outside the hanger bay doors deployed upward and snared the nose of the Pod in a last ditch effort to keep it from crashing into the pressure doors.  
Luck was also with them as the ship finally came to a shuddering halt in the mesh cocoon.  
It was only then that D'argo registered the familiar feeling that told him Moya had just come out of starburst. He had been too focused on avoiding a serious crash to notice the odd sensation of intra-space travel. A moment latter he realized he still had a death-grip on the Pod's control stick. The warrior forced his numb fingers to pry their hold off the stick, and then shook them in the air at his side to restore circulation in the digits. He let out a deep breath that he hadn't known he was holding until then.  
"Frell me dead!" he muttered, flopping back almost limply in the pilot's seat for a moment.  
  
Rygel untangled his face from the sleeve of his black coverall's and looked around after the Pod came to a stop.   
"Are we dead yet?" he asked of no one in particular.  
"Not yet, Dominar," came the reply.  
Across from him, Berret sat casually, legs propped out before him with his back leaning up against one of the cables that held up the machine they had stole. The Hynerian would have jumped to the Transport Pod's deck as soon as the cargo doors were closed, but Berret had idly suggested that they remained where they were on top of the device for the ride back to the Leviathan.  
The Shrike refused to elaborate more on the suggestion and Rygel almost told him to go frell himself, but his own instinct for self-preservation warned him to follow the assassin's lead and stay where he was. The reason soon became apparent with the violent flight and the even rougher landing. While still attached to the winch cables, the reconstruction device might as well be in a floating sling with shock absorbers. The ride was much more pleasant and safer than it would have been down on the deck. There was some jolting and bouncing, but the Hynerian ruler was able to hold his place by wrapping his arms around the nearest cable. Berret for his part just leaned nonchalantly against his own cable as if he were so bored that he might have nodded off for a nap. The Dominar wondered how he so easily kept his position and concluded it was probably another trick of his battle armor. Rygel also had the sneaking suspicion that the Enforcer would have been very entertained by his bouncing around the cargo hold should he have totally dismissed his suggestion to remain on top of the medical machine until after landing.  
The Hynerian frowned.  
"A pity for you," he shot back. "You'll just have to be satisfied with all the poor bastards you killed down there."  
Berret's only reply was to reach up and trigger his helm release from his armor's neck collar. The lighted optics died and he split the helmet halves open and removed it, pausing only to give his long sweat-soaked matted hair a brief shake. He then gave the smaller being a sick grin that didn't touch his eyes.  
"When one makes omelets, Dominar," the Shrike replied, "Some eggs get broken."  
Rygel sneered in return. He was simply too tired to be intimidated for the rest of the day.  
A thought pricked his normally quick mind and Rygel mentally reviewed the last few microts of conversation. Something had stuck him as out of place. A moment later he thought he had it.  
"Wait a moment," he said as Berret jumped to the transport's deck. The assassin halted a moment, obviously wondering if there would be one final chance to torment the Hynerian. "That phrase you so callously spouted off... where did you hear it?"  
The twisted smirk on Berret's face actually faltered a moment.  
"I do not recall," he finally admitted with some bemusement. "Why? Did the reference make you hungry again?" he taunted.  
"Was it in Crichton's quarters? On his Tee-Vee machine?" Rygel than asked, ignoring the jab.  
Berret frowned when he didn't get the reaction from the small being he wanted.  
"No. I believe the expression predates my experience with your crewmate's primitive video device," he supplied a few microts later. "Perhaps it is a old Scarran saying if you must know."  
The Enforcer turned to leave, obviously becoming bored with Rygel and the discussion.  
"One more thing... do you even know what an omelet is?" the Hynerian threw out.  
"Of course I do!" Berret turned and spat back in growing annoyance. Rygel only looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to fill in the answer. The Shrike growled low and continued, "... It is a..."  
Berret face suddenly drew blank in deep puzzlement. Rygel felt his curiosity grow; it was plain that the assassin didn't know the answer... didn't know the answer, but knew a phrase he shouldn't have known.  
"You don't know, do you?" Rygel said, unable to keep the hint of superiority out of his tone.  
Berret's brows furled in irritation and his eyes began to glint in hatred.  
"Your question is pointless," he spat as he slammed a fist into the hatch switch. The doorway cycled open letting in the smoke and sound of burning and crashing debris outside the Pod as everything settled down after the crash landing. Without another word, the Enforcer descended the companionway to the landing bay floor, leaving the Hynerian to ponder the new development for a moment.  
"Pointless to you, bastard," Rygel muttered, "But revealing to me." The Shrike had known a phrase about making omelets but had not known what one was when asked. And at some level knew they were edible, but the fact never registered when he made himself try to think about it... almost as if something were purposely blocking the information from being recalled.  
One of the things the Dominar prided himself on was being a connoisseur of good food the Territories over. He'd eaten in the best refreshment houses and the most prestigious palaces on countless civilized worlds. He could even say he'd had more than his fair share of military rations and prison slop.  
But there was only one place he'd ever visited that had that wonderful creation called "the omelet," a delectable delicacy that could be such a varying dish, so plain or creative as the chef or patron wished it to be. One place, and one place only.  
He wondered just how the damn Shrike fitted into the grand picture now?  
"Curious-er and curious-er..." he mumbled, and then smiled as he remembered where that particular quote came from also.  
  
An arn later, and Pilot and Moya used one of the landing bay cranes to lift up the damaged Pod.  
A scaffold was set up underneath it to replace the missing landing skids and the crew was able to release the reconstruction device from the craft's hold.  
Most of the crew gathered round the machine, chattering excitedly while D'argo examined the device. Despite the fast extraction and hard transport flight, the machine was in better shape then he could have hoped.  
He was just inspecting the power cable, a task made somewhat more difficult with Chiana clinging happily to his arm, when he dropped the bundle of wires and stood up straight, frowning deeply.  
The low hum of concentration that escaped him was less than hopeful at the moment.  
"What's wrong?" Chiana piped up. She could make out her lover's shape but not the expression on his face. She didn't need her vision to tell her that the hum meant the Luxan was not happy with how something was working out.  
"This is going to be more complicated than we thought," he answered. "I can't began to figure out how we have to rewire this machine so it works correctly. One wrong connection... and we could frell the whole thing."  
Out of habit, he gazed around at his shipmates for suggestions. Finding only Chiana, Rygel, Stark, Noranti, and the Shrike with him. Rygel and Chiana followed what he said closely, while Stark repeatedly mumbled to himself. Noranti looked off in her own world as usual and the ex-Enforcer stood some distance off from the group, idly watching as if the events held little or no interest to him - which suited D'argo just fine for the time being.  
"I wish Zhaan were here," the warrior said out loud almost as a sigh. "She might be able to figure this device out given enough time."  
Stark perked up at the mention of the Delvian woman's name.  
"Oh yes! My Zhaan could figure it out in no time," he ranted. "Zhaan would have..."  
"Stark, shut up!" D'argo snapped absentmindedly. The Banik started at the rejoinder and went back to his mumbling. Occasionally he said Zhaan's name louder then the rest of his words, but not loud enough to bother anyone more.  
"So what do we do now?" asked Rygel with a raised earbrow. He turned in his Hoverthrone slightly to take in the rest of the crew. "Noranti has at least some medical training, but the old hezzm-bat is as about as useful as shat-looms on a Kasperian bull with medical machinery," The old woman raised an eyebrow placidly, smiled at the comment and give everyone a cheery wave as if agreeing with the assessment. "The rest of us aren't much better either," the Dominar added.  
"So what, we give up?" Chiana asked. "We forget about John and Aeryn after all this?"  
"Chiana, the technology is beyond us," D'argo told her.  
"So we find somebody who its not!" the Nebari shot back stubbornly.  
Before anyone could answer, Pilot cut in from the holo-comm. "If I may interrupted... Moya and I would like to offer our services in studying the device. Perhaps there is something in Moya's data banks which might prove useful and lead to answers after we have scanned it."  
The Luxan seemed momentarily distracted by a thought. Abruptly he snapped back to the conversation.  
"Yes, Pilot. That would be a big help if you and Moya could search her data bases."  
Pilot smiled in the hologram, happy to be making a contribution to the effort. D'argo turned back to Chiana.  
"That is a good idea," he said to the gray girl.  
"What exactly?" she asked.  
"Finding somebody who can figure it out," he supplied, "What we need is a scientist."  
Chiana bobbed her head in slight surprise. "Oh!" she murmured.  
"The question is... where do we look?" the Luxan then put out.  
The crew searched their minds for an answer, a few microts later Chiana smiled.  
"Princess!" she said.  
"What?" several voices seemed to say at once.  
"Jool!" Chiana explained, "She was always bragging about her education. If anyone can figure this contraption out, Princess can!" The smile on the Nebari's face grew wider as she laid her thoughts out for the others.  
D'argo's gruff features spilt into an equally big grin.  
"Jool!" he exclaimed and then swept Chiana up into his arms and spun her around, making the Nebari girl laugh with pleasure. "By the Goddess, you've come up with it, Chiana!"  
"Well... I have my moments," the girl replied in a pleased tone.  
Rygel put in his approval and even Stark had a lucid moment of agreement. Noranti crossed both her hands in front of her and gave the group an un-noticed solemn nod. She had wondered how long it would take the younger members of Moya's crew to realize the problem of the machine's complexity and work out a solution. Sometimes it was best to let youth work out life's problems without the benefit of age and experience. There were several more hurtles she foresaw, but they would wait for the proper time and place to be dealt with. Let them handle each crisis one-at-a-time.  
  
Off to the side, Berret wondered who this Jool person that the others were exalting was... and then decided that it really didn't concern him. The rest, even Chiana, had not seen fit to include him in the revelation. The omission only drove home the point of how much an outsider he was and would remain.  
He caught Noranti regarding him with a knowing look and returned the gaze with dead eyes. The old woman simply titled her head and shrugged her shoulders to say she didn't mind his isolation from the group if he didn't. Berret turned away and ignored her.  
"Pilot!" D'argo barked, "Can you and Moya still locate Arnessk?"  
Pilot checked his boards and reported back, "We are still within the known sectors of space we have traveled through. Moya is checking her logs and coordinating a return course to Arnessk. We will have a vector solution within one hundred microts."   
"Excellent," the Luxan said with a genuine smile. "As soon as you have it, take us to Arnessk."  
"It will be our pleasure, Captain D'argo," Pilot responded. "We are looking forward to seeing Joolushko again."  
  
Reluctantly, D'argo secured Stark's help in bringing the reconstruction machine to the medical bay.  
Chiana giggled pleasantly as she watched the pair of dim forms roll the device out of the maintenance bay.  
She turned back and vaguely made out Noranti working at something in Zhaan's old Apothecary in the corner of the chamber. Looking further, another shape caught her eye and she squinted. The form was no clearer but she decided it could only be Berret.  
She smiled broadly, she'd really didn't have much of a chance to speak with her friend since the Pod's return. She boldly began to stride over to the man, only to trip lightly over something in her way.  
She nimbly caught her balance and giggled once more, this time at her near accident. It wouldn't have mattered to the Nebari if she had gone head over eema in the fall. She was happy, her sight was healing and they were one step closer to having Aeryn and John back with them. She already had Berret back in her life after believing for so long that he had died in their escape from the Syndicate. Things could not be turning out any better she dared to think.  
  
"Hi, welcome back," the gray girl said happily. She was close enough now to make out the white blur that was the Shrike's face over the dark blob that was his gunmetal armor.  
"Hello..." the Enforcer replied rather hesitantly. "How are you feeling?"  
"Better," Chiana told him, "I can make out where you are now." To demonstrate the point, she reached up and laid her palm against his cheek on the first attempt. She could feel the muscles in his cheek and jaw tense at the contact, but she just put it down to Berret's ways. Given enough time he would grow accustom to a friend's touch. She thought nothing more of it when a slight shift of the Shrike's weight from foot-to-foot was enough to break the contact. The move could have been casual though she knew it was not, Chiana felt no offense and instead lowered her hand to rest on his metal-covered forearm, a contact she had no doubt he would allow as he had guided her enough times in her blindness in this manner.  
The gray girl made a mental note that when her sight had improved enough; she was going to make arrangements for some private time with the ex-assassin to work on his interaction with people. D'argo would surely look sourly upon the effort, but she was sure he would see the logic in it. Chiana had swore up and down to her lover, that given enough time, Berret could be taught how to fit in aboard Moya and that he would be a excellent addition to the crew once she showed him what it was like to have real friends. He just needed a chance is all.  
  
Berret for some eccentric reason hadn't been looking forward to seeing the Nebari again. When she had started to head over to his vicinity, he had thought about turning and walking away as if he hadn't noticed her before she could reach him, but he dismissed the idea as foolish and illogical.  
There was no good reason why he should wish to avoid the girl.  
He had also recently gotten the voice in the back of his mind down to a background murmur. Somehow, it seemed to realize that there was nothing to wreck its havoc on here aboard the living ship. Perhaps it knew that survival hinged on remaining concealed for the time being. Berret also had the strange feeling that he and that wild specter had reached a sort of truce where Moya and her crew was concerned. For the moment, he needed a place to prepare for his return to the Syndicate to exact his vengeance, and the Leviathan was a better place then most to do so. It was like the voice was willing to put its bloodlust on hold for the promised unfettered violence to come in the near future against the Scarran and his criminal organization.  
A sudden cold prick inside his brain told him that was exactly what his personal demon was waiting for. It was willing to trade the insignificant crew of the Leviathan for mass carnage among Arckatius' Black Syndicate House.  
Berret found that was a trade he was more then gladly willing to make, but at the same time he felt he should have been slightly disturbed that he was even giving in that far to the ranting ghost in his head.  
He knew he couldn't afford too much compromise with whatever was inside him.  
  
The thoughts were pushed into the back of his mind to be dealt with at a later time as Chiana made small talk with him. Her eyes had begun to darken more to the glistening black he remembered. It wouldn't be long before she was able to see him and he found he didn't like that prospect much.  
With her sight back would she be able to look and see what he had become? From their past talks since meeting again, he was aware she had this mental vision of who she thought he was. In a way her blindness had been a safety net, she had only her memory of their brief time together to draw from. Soon she would truly see and it would be a miracle if she were just merely disappointed at the man he really was and not outright disgusted. Berret knew that the comfort he had drawn from her handicap had made him a coward.  
He had been a frelling idiot to even think of asking her to leave with him in the beginning.  
Her gentle touch of his cheek should have left him elated. How many times had he witnessed her caress the Luxan like that... and more? He recalled the deep pangs of jealousy that left his stomach cold, but his chest in fire. Oh, he told the others that he did not understand or feel emotion, but it was a lie.  
He understood the darker ones all too well.  
The Syndicate had only left him with those emotions it considered useful in an Enforcer. The collar magnified all that was negative emotions at the proper times. Hate, rage, blind fury... and even fear were sometimes useful. You had to hate in order to slaughter the innocent, you had to rage in order to rip a person limb-from-limb, your victims needed to see your merciless blind fury and known what the results were in crossing the Syndicate. In such ways, terror was the leash of obedience in the underworld.   
And the Shrike Enforcer deep down on some subconscious level where not even the control collar could touch, needed the fear of knowing what failure to carry out his owner's directives would bring as a reward.  
Jealousy was the blackest of all emotions, and Berret didn't need the collar's help to feel it.   
  
For an uncountable time since his arrival and her delicate refusal to leave with him, he found himself wishing that the Nebari had never touched some deep part of him. A part of him that always eluded his understanding.  
Right now, he just wished she would go away.  
His features gave the gray girl no hint as too what was going on inside of the tall ex-assassin. It was clear that she was euphoric with the prospect of the full recovery of her sight... and the near possibility of her friends being restored to the crew sometime soon.  
Berret made his pretext to leave as soon as seemed reasonable, claiming to wish to retire to his quarters to clean up after the successful mission to steal the medical device. On his way out of the maintenance bay, Noranti nonchalantly sided up to him and regarded him with a curious lift of a single eyebrow.  
"Leave me be, old woman," Berret growled in a warning tone only loud enough for her to hear.  
Rygel watched the Shrike leave the bay as Noranti cheerfully steeped aside. Unseen by the assassin he had made his way closer to Chiana.  
"How ya doing, Toad-face?" the Nebari asked happily as she made out the Hynerian's blurred features.  
"We need to talk," he replied in a low guarded voice. 


	10. Chapter 9

Chiana bit her lower lip and tried not to pace in the corridor as she waited outside the quarters the Shrike had been assigned to. While her sight was returning, it was best that she not participate in the practice else she just might trip over something she couldn't clearly see yet. Plus the fact she knew from past experience that pacing only made her more edgy.  
When he finally left his room after cleaning up, she wasn't sure if she should be glad the wait was over or simply eschew the coming conversation she knew she had to have with the man.  
As Berret left the doorway of the converted cell, at that present range Chiana saw him mostly as a large dark humanoid shape. Her half-healed eyes were still unable to focus clearly on objects at a distance yet.  
Even though the last time she had actually laid seeing eyes upon him was during their escape from the Syndicate, she could still recall the deadly graceful way the assassin had of moving. Such was the quick bond they had developed in that short time together, she was sure she would know it anywhere.  
Berret had always seemed to her during their bid to escape as if his next movement would be one of explosive violence.  
  
The Nebari knew against better judgment that she had always found that trait in males to be especially exciting. Her life and past were full of affairs with dangerous men. Even her brother Nerri had warned her on more than one occasion that her tastes and passion for exhilarating thrills would led her into something she might not be able to get out of one day.  
In some way, she thought of Berret as different than all the others. She remembered the look in his eyes as he shoved her into the escape pod. The moment they shared separated by the heavy door of the ship was etched into her mind. After he had torn out the hatch's control panel, his armor covered hand mirroring hers against the small porthole, just before he turned away to meet their enemies and buy her time to escape with his life. How she had screamed the name she had given him until her throat felt raw... and grieved him for so long afterwards, not even sharing her private pain with her crewmates.  
She remembered the innocent kiss she had given him in a moment of delight and his even more innocent bewilderment afterwards.  
She forced that image from her mind - she found she didn't want to remember the kiss. It was something best forgotten and left buried. She was back with D'argo now.  
Chiana so very badly did not want to believe the things Rygel had told her just a short time ago.  
  
Oddly, the ex-assassin seemed preoccupied with his thoughts and he hadn't noticed the lithe Nebari girl in the tier corridor until she called his name.  
Berret spun toward her, almost dropping into an attack posture before realizing whom it was behind him.  
Despite her resolve, the Nebari girl found herself pleased he moved just the way she remembered.  
The Shrike relaxed and than straightened to wait while she carefully made her way over to him. About an arm's length away, the man's face finally came into a sort of blurry focus for the girl. She was glad to find that her vision had improved enough in the last few arns to be able to tell pick out that Berret's long hair was still damp from bathing. He basically looked the same as she remembered, but there was also something different that she couldn't put a finger on. Chiana told herself that what Rygel had divulged to her had tainted her thoughts and pushed the reflection aside.  
She had to prove that he was the man she thought he was. The one who fought for freedom from the collar and the Syndicate, the person who saw something in her that inspired him to break his bounds.  
The one who was willing to sacrifice himself for her because of what he saw.  
No one had ever looked at her or thought of her quite like that.  
  
"I need to speak with you," she told the former Enforcer as she came to a halt in front of him.  
"Of course. About what?" he asked. His tone was as neutral as always, but Chiana could make out a slight curious rise of his eyebrow. The only hint of emotion she knew the man would probably show.  
She took a microt to clear her throat and steadied herself to ask the questions she didn't want to ask.  
"I had a talk... with Rygel," she began. Berret didn't respond in any way to her opening statement as far as she could tell, and she silently wished her eyes were better so she might be able to see what the Shrike might have let slip on his face... if there had been anything.   
The wishing didn't improve her vision any at the moment, so she continued on.  
"He told me privately what happened down on Qujaga."  
"Did he?" Berret replied noncommittally.  
Again, she received no verbal clue as to what was going through the Shrike's mind at that instant. She didn't want to go on. She found herself hurting in a way she never expected. She didn't want to believe what the Hynerian had told her about her friend, about the things he had done while planet-side.  
Still she had to know the truth, so she pressed on despite wanting desperately to turn around and walk away from Berret without asking the questions.  
  
"Is what he said true?" she suddenly blurted out, "Did you do the things Rygel said you did?"  
The words hung in the air between them almost as solid as a stonewall. Chiana wished just as suddenly that she could take them back, to undo the question. But she had asked it, so now she waited for him to answer. Praying he would deny what the Dominar had told her, to say that Rygel was lying.  
Her grief grew as Berret only regarded her with dispassionate eyes and silent voice.  
"Is it true? Did you go out of your way to hurt more of the Qujagans then you had too?" she asked once more, this time with the tone of a demand in her voice. "Did you kill people you didn't absolutely have to?"  
"I did what you asked of me."  
"That's not an answer!" Chiana found herself snapping. "Did you do it?" The Nebari's voice broke slightly with the repeat of her question.  
Unexpectedly, the Shrike's gaze shifted minutely away from her. The movement and its meaning were plain even to her injured sight.   
Her still sensitive eyes began to well with hot tears, she felt something whither in her soul. Berret facade of unnatural calm faltered clearly at that moment. The gray girl's building grief was too deep to be surprised at the slight show of emotion from the ex-Enforcer.  
Chiana took another step forward, bringing him more into clearer focus, and now saw the look on his face unmistakably. She knew in that instant that Rygel had been telling her the truth about the Shrike. She bit at her lip to keep from openly weeping and looked away from the man, wishing for her blindness once more in that moment.  
"Why?" she asked quietly a few microts later. Berret's gaze had turned downward to the deck also.  
"I do not know," he replied finally. "I just... did."  
She knew instinctively he was lying.  
  
A lone tear started to freely roll down the Nebari girl's cheeks at his admission despite her attempts to hold them back. Chiana suddenly felt as if something important had been ripped away from her. She brushed the teardrop quickly away, she did not want him to see how deeply she was hurt.  
"No... that's not the man I thought I knew," she murmured in denial. "That's not the one who help me."  
"Perhaps that person never really existed," Berret said a moment later in an equally quiet tone.   
Chiana almost savagely shook her head in refutation of his comment.   
"No, there has to be a reason why you did all that," she said almost as a plea, the hope of denial clear in her voice but faltering. "Tell me it was self-defense... they were going to capture you or Rygel and there was no other choice. Tell me anytime you killed, it had to be done. It was a case of them or you. Tell me... you weren't enjoying it... please!"  
Berret remained silent again instead of answering and relieving her uncertainties. She turned back to face him fully, her hands balling into tiny fists worrying at his tunic front with frantic movements, trying to shake a corroboration to her entreaty from him, as if her limbs had minds of their own.  
"Tell me you're still that person I escaped with. The one who saw all the good in me," she begged. Her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes lost all the focus they had gained as a new flood of tears overwhelmed her defenses and escaped to nearly blind her once more. "Tell me... tell me you're still that soul I grieved for all that time. The one who I thought died for me."  
  
Berret swallowed hard, that dark voice in the back of his mind chuckled malevolently at Chiana's anguish. The specter's tone in his mind so rich in malevolence that for a moment he imagined the Nebari girl had to have heard it also. It was then Berret knew for certain he was losing that battle within himself for control.  
That part of him that thrived on the death and destruction was seeping into every aspect of his life, slipping passed its bonds like sand through his fingers.  
"I need to hear that you're still him somewhere inside, Berret," Chiana implored.  
"I cannot..." he told her.  
Chiana stared at him blankly for a moment as his words sank in. Then her still unhealed dark eyes turned from disbelief, to agony, to sad betrayal, all within a few brief heartbeats. She slowly lowered her eyes and broke eye contact with him a moment later, to gaze straight ahead at his chest. Her hands robotically untangled themselves from his shirt and slowly dropped lifelessly to her sides.  
"I - I guess... I stopped grieving for my Berret too soon," she said more to herself as she took a step back from him. "I guess that person I thought I knew really did die helping me escape."  
She looked back up at him and her eyes had changed. It was something the ex-Enforcer had seen countless times before in the eyes of his Syndicate victims.  
To the Shrike it looked as if something had died in the girl's pain-filled dark orbs.  
"You're just a ghost using his name and face," she told him in a tone that matched her faraway look.  
"Chiana..." Berret started to say, even though he had no idea what he planned on telling her.  
She stopped him before he could falter on much further.  
"No, please... don't say anything," she told him in a tone that had become almost as emotionless as his. Chiana turned herself away from Berret and took several more steps further away from him. "I need to be by myself... and I can't look at you anymore."  
This last she said over her shoulder as she moved away and headed back down Moya's corridor at a fast walk, a faster pace then what was probably safe with her impaired vision. That factor drove home the point that the gray girl... his savior... his once friend... could no longer bear to be near him.   
Berret silently watched until she disappeared around a junction and was gone. The universe abruptly seemed to collapse and his stomach just as suddenly dropped into a space-cold pit somewhere inside him.  
It had begun, what he had so feared the most. The beautiful Nebari, who had been his only true companion, was beginning to see the monster he actually was.  
"Its for the best," he murmured at the long departed gray girl from where he still stood. "I am what I was designed to be."  
In his mind, that vile voice shrilled with demented Scarran inflected laughter.  
He wasn't sure if the mirth was over the slaughter he'd committed, or the way his bleak life was unraveling around him.   
The only thing he had left for himself was his revenge against the Black Syndicate... and the voice impatiently shrieked at him once more to get on with it.  
  
Chiana's sight steadily improved over the next three solar days.  
Noranti administered the occasion herbal treatment once or twice daily as needed for the Nebari girl's discomfort, but the treatments were needed less and less frequently as the days wore on.  
Even though his lover's eyesight was improving, the gray girl appeared more listless and at times depressed than she should be to the Luxan warrior. D'argo guessed that Chiana's funk had something to do with what Rygel told the group he had witnessed the Shrike do on the Qujagan homeworld.  
His suspicions were confirmed more than a few times since leaving the Qujagan system when Chiana and Berret ran into each other in the Center Chamber or in Moya's corridors. Neither spoke to the other, and Chiana always seemed to direct her eyes in another direction from where the assassin was, and then make an excuse to go elsewhere.  
D'argo simultaneously felt glad that Chiana was seeing the Shrike for the unstable creature he was, and sad because it made his lover so morose. She had built the ex-Enforcer up in her mind to be something he wasn't and then based part of her self image on how she thought he viewed her... only to find out that he was little more than a homicidal maniac.   
Still it was a hard lesson for Chiana to learn and he hoped that she would get over it soon. She'd always been one to bounce back from difficult setbacks before.   
The Luxan hoped that the ship could return to some form of normalcy in a few solar days as he'd recently learned from Pilot that the Shrike had begun working on his ship in preparations for departure. Berret had indicated a desire to the Leviathan's helmsman to return to the Syndicate planet he'd first met Chiana on to settle his score with the Scarran crime house that had enslaved him. And the assassin had asked for several starcharts from the Leviathan's data banks with that end in mind.  
Oddly enough, Pilot was the only being that the Shrike would speak to over the last several solar days, ignoring everyone else the few times anyone tried to ask him anything.   
Which suited Dargo just fine.  
  
The warrior was on the Command Tier idly fingering through some starcharts of his own when Noranti commed him.  
"D'argo?" the old woman asked over the link.  
"Here," D'argo responded after tapping his comm badge. "What word?" he asked before she could say anything further. The old medicine woman had been helping Pilot and the DRD's try and figure out the device they had stolen from the prison.  
"Nothing more, I'm afraid," admitted Noranti.  
D'argo uttered a low curse. Before he could ask anything more Pilot formed in a hologram in the near-by clamshell.  
"Moya and I have also exhausted our data resources attempting to learn how the device operates. There is simply nothing remotely related to it in our Peacekeeper technology databanks at this moment," the helmsman apologized.  
"As you said before, the bio-deconstructor... or reconstructor - as however you would think of it since it performs both functions, is also far beyond my limited knowledge of medical devices," added the old woman's voice on the comm link.  
  
The big Luxan sighted. It was beginning to look like they had risked stealing the machine for nothing.  
"What about Jool? Did she know anything when you contacted her?" he asked.  
"Princess laser commed us about an arn ago," broke in Chiana. D'argo was a little surprised to find that she was down in Maintenance Bay One with the others working on the machine. "She looked over the scans and the thing looks like it's new to her too, but she thinks she can figure out how to connect all the parts and get it working... but not much more than just that."  
D'argo half-heartedly slammed a fist on the chart table. Disappointment was becoming a way of life as far as that frelling machine was concerned. He was hoping Jool would have all the answers they needed.  
"At least that's something, if she can get the frelling thing hooked up and working," the warrior said.  
"Joolushko still strongly desires to help and has requested that we make arrangements to rendezvous with her in the Arnessk system," Pilot added.  
"She thinks it might be better if she can see the deconstructor machine in person," the Nebari explained. "I still think if anyone can figure it out, Princess can."  
"I agree," said D'argo, finding himself strangely eager to see the red-haired Interion again. "Pilot, set a course to pick-up Jool," he ordered.  
"Already done," confirmed Pilot. "We should arrive in one point three-six solar days."  
"Jool has also made one other suggestion you may want to consider," advised Noranti  
"But you're not going to like it," added Chiana somewhat nervously.  
The warrior sighed once more. "There is already a lot I do not like about this task," he said, "What did Jool suggest?"  
Noranti continued on, "Jool says that even if she can get the device to work, she will probably not have enough knowledge to be able to safely use it to restore Aeryn and Crichton no matter how long she studies it. Therefore she suggests that there might be one, possibly two others, we should try contacting and bringing in to help."  
"And they are?"  
"Scorpius and Sikozu," finished the Nebari.  
They were right; D'argo didn't like that idea at all.  
  
The big Luxan's mood did not improve much over then next solar day as the assembled remainders of Moya's crew met inside the Center Chamber to work out the last details of the new plan to recruit Scorpius and the Kalish woman to their cause.  
Jool's reunion with her shipmates had been short but sweet before she was set to work examining the alien bio-device. Dargo found himself more than just pleased to see the redheaded Interion again, and Chiana greeted her like a long lost sister... even though she was keenly aware of how close her lover and Jool had grown in the time that they had spent on the Arnessk dig together.  
Jool also made it obvious when she arrived that she was more than happy to see the big Luxan and just as obviously damped her interest when she learned that D'argo and the Nebari were a couple once more.  
While the highly educated Interion woman turned her abilities to working diligently on uncovering the deconstructor's secrets and workings, she again showed how naive she could be by almost immediately becoming fascinated by Berret's presence aboard the Leviathan.  
Jool pestered the moody man with insistent questions about the Scarran Black Syndicate and his life as an Enforcer for the criminal organization, failing in her enthusiasm to note the warning signs that the assassin was growing annoyed with her probing until Chiana took her aside and cautioned her that it would be best to live the temperamental Shrike alone.  
Even Rygel's account of the raid on Qujaga did not temper the girl's thirst for knowledge about the assassin, nor Stark's persistent warnings about how dangerous Berret was.  
What did rein in her quest for new facts about Moya's new passenger was the way Chiana's disposition changed whenever he was near by or mentioned in conversation. The Nebari became sullen and tight lipped whenever asked anything about the Shrike. And plainly outright uncomfortable the few times they were in the same area of the ship together, no matter how briefly.  
And it was obvious that D'argo hated the Enforcer.  
The bizarre situation and behavior only served to fuel Jool's curiosity more.   
  
The warrior sat at the head of the table as befit the Leviathan's elected captain. He idly thumbed the edges of some data-films as he listened to what the others had to say about the plan they had come up with.  
"As you can see," put in Noranti. "There is no other choice if we want the next part of the plot to bring John and Aeryn back to succeed... we must have Berret's help," she said of the absent Shrike.   
"No!" spat Stark vehemently. "He is mad! A killer! The voices of the dead still scream at me... he will send more to the other side before their time. Zhaan would not approve of using him!"  
Rygel took a pull at the pipe he was smoking and exhaled a puff of aromatic smoke before speaking.  
"I have to agree with Stark on this one," the Hynerian Dominar said. "As much as it pains me to give credence to his endless ramblings. We cannot control Chiana's pet. There's no guarantee that he won't turn on us as well if the Peacekeepers start shooting and he starts killing."  
"And there's no guarantee that anyone will start shooting to began with," added Jool. "Scorpius wants John alive and well for the wormhole knowledge he carries. Surely as a reasoning being, he will help us once we explain the situation and our need?"  
D'argo snorted. "Reasoning is not a term I would associate with Scorpius," he muttered.  
"And we damn sure don't dare tell him of Crichton and Aeryn's condition. That's all he would need to know to just attack us and take their remains and that frelling machine we stole," added in Rygel. "He doesn't need us for anything and if he gets his hands on everything he does need to reassemble Crichton himself - we're all frelling dead."  
"So we're running out of options," Jool concluded. "I'm positive I can get the device working correctly in just a few arns. But I don't have enough study in life science theory to even began to figure out the proper procedure to reconstitute them from crystal stasis."   
The Luxan sighed and then pushed the stack of data-films he'd been toying with away from him.  
"It looks that way, as usual - we have almost no options. We need to trick that Peacekeeper bastard into helping us on our terms," he said glumly.  
"Ka'D'Argo," Noranti said formally. "There is no other choice... and there is no one else. I am too old, Chiana is still recovering, Joolushko is not a warrior, Stark is... well, Stark. And Rygel will be very minimal back up for you while you deal with Scorpius. We must ask for 'his' help."   
The Luxan slumped back in his seat and his frown deepened.  
"The old hag is right... for once," put in Rygel, "We can't do this with just the two of us. Don't think for a microt I'm at all happy about this or frelling looking forward to it... but we're going to have to chance that frelling abomination's help again. "  
"If he's inclined to give it," the big warrior rumbled.  
"He will... if she asks," the old woman countered with a meaningful glance at the up until then silent Chiana.  
  
"What! We cannot turn him loose!" shouted the Banik. "You know what he will do if given the chance!"  
"Shut up, Stark!" the warrior snapped. Chiana looked as if she were somewhere else instead of in the Center Chamber with the rest of the shipmates. The Luxan turned his attention in her direction again.  
D'argo regarded his gray-skinned lover and watched her carefully. "What do you think, Chiana? Will Berret help?" he asked her.  
The young Nebari nervously glance around at the waiting faces, then focused her gaze somewhere at the middle of the empty table they were gathered around.  
"I - I'm not... sure," she replied after a moment.  
The Luxan captain twisted his lips in slight frustration. Before he could speak, the Hynerian cut in.  
"Not sure or don't want to ask?" Rygel said irately. "You brought that maniac on board... and now that we're stuck with him and he nearly got me killed numerous times... you're not sure if he will help? I haven't risk all this, done all this work to bring Aeryn and Crichton back, for nothing!"   
"Its not that easy..." Chiana began to say.  
"I say make him help at gunpoint and maybe if we're lucky... Scorpius and the Peacekeepers will kill him for us!" the Dominar interrupted. "As a matter of fact, its too bad we don't have another one of those Scarran control collars. Then we can just snap it on the frellnik and..."  
"SHUT YOUR FRELLING MOUTH!" Chiana unexpectedly bolted upright and shouted. She angrily pointed a forefinger at the Hynerian royal seething with barely contained fury. "Nobody is putting collar on anybody... for any frelling reason!"  
The pair glared at each other for a few microts and than Chiana slowly sank back into her chair. The look of fury dulled on her features as she slid back into her private thoughts.  
"It was just an idle notion," Rygel than said.  
"Rygel! Be quiet!" snapped Jool. The red haired female was beginning to piece more of the puzzle concerning her gray shipmate and the Shrike together as Chiana now continued to sit silently with a numb look back in her eyes.  
There was some sort of bond between the two, though surprisingly the Interion didn't think it was sexual in nature. Something about Berret was tearing the Nebari up inside.  
"The Shrike will help if you ask," Noranti assured the gray girl once more.  
"You will excuse me if I add..." broke in Pilot from the holo-comm where he was watching the meeting. "Berret has expressed a strong desire to return and settle his... affairs... with the Black Syndicate. Based on my past discussions with him, neither Moya or I believe he will be inclined to help us further."  
"His... loyalty... to Chiana will change his mind," assured the old woman.  
Jool frowned at the rest of the group. "Is that the moral thing to do?" she asked them. "To so blatantly use that against him for our own ends?"  
Rygel tisked and rolled his frogeyes. "Who the yotz cares?" he said. "We've done far worse."  
"My point exactly," Noranti put in with a satisfied look, that left the others wondering - though no one bothered to ask for an explanation from the eccentric woman.  
"Chiana," D'argo cut in and waited until his lover raised her dark eyes up to met his from across the table. He leaned forward and made his voice as gentle as possible. "Can you get him to help us one last time or not?" he asked.  
The Nebari thief held his gaze for a moment and then nodded minutely.   
"Yes," she said quietly at first. Chiana nodded again more strongly a microt later. "Yeah... I can get him to help."  
The Luxan slide back in his seat and grunted his stiff approval. Stark began to ramble to himself about more deaths. Rygel went back to smoking his pipe while Noranti placed her hands together as if in prayer and slightly bowed her head. Chiana went back to gazing off into the distance.  
Jool found herself studying her gray friend and saw that behind her dark eyes, Chiana was battling with herself somewhere inside her thoughts. 


	11. Chapter 10

Chiana entered Maintenance Bay Two hesitantly; still unsure on what she planned to say.  
The Wraith Stealth ship sat parked on it's landing skids just before the huge hanger doors that led out into Moya's even more massive landing bay. The flat black craft was larger than a prowler but not quite as big as a Transport Pod. The retractable folding wings with their stealth surveillance equipment gave her the impression of some sort of bird-of-prey, indeed the ship did look as if it sitting on the deck waiting for some unsuspecting quarry to pounce on. While Peacekeeper in manufacture, it almost could have been Scarran in design. Chiana realized she was using her inspection of the spacecraft to unconsciously delay her task, so she squared her slim shoulders and continued the rest of the way into the bay.  
The portside engine cowling was propped open and the Nebari girl could plainly see the Shrike leaning inside, busily making some type of adjustments to the engine nacelle.  
The ex-assassin's back was turned toward her and Chiana wasn't sure if that were a blessing or not. It gave her another brief respite if only for a few more microts from facing the man she'd been mostly avoiding for the last several solar days now.   
The young Nebari thief paused for a moment to take a deep breath to reinforce herself for what she had to do, and then made her way over to the tall man and his ship.  
  
Chiana's eyes were practically healed except for an occasional soreness after a few arns, so she was able to make her way across the tool-cluttered bay without stumbling over anything with her usual thief-trained grace. Berret must have been engrossed in whatever preparations he was making because he didn't seem to notice the Nebari girl's arrival until she was about a Prowler's length away from him. The only sign he allowed himself when her presence did register was a momentary straightening and stiffening of his back as he ceased working for a few heartbeats. She had a feeling that he seemed to be debating with himself about turning to face her and she thought that notion correct when he shifted his weight as if getting ready to back out of the engine compartment. Berret moved only a bare henta but then paused, it was clear that he decided to continue on with his work, possibly thinking that she had come down to the maintenance bay on some unrelated errand of her own. He leaned slightly back under the engine cowling again and picked up where he left off with his current undertaking, leaving her to make the next move or continue on with whatever task brought her into the bay.   
  
Chiana fought the urge to shuffle her feet like a nervous little girl. She had come with another large appeal to request of the Shrike that she knew she shouldn't be asking, and she wasn't really sure how he would respond despite her assurances to the others that Berret would grant her one last favor if she asked.  
After Jool had come aboard, the crewmates had spent countless arns planning their next move. They formed and discarded so many ideas that the gray girl had lost track and this last final plan was the best they could come up with.  
The next phase of the operation could be very touchy and get very dangerous if they weren't careful. If they tipped their hand at all, Scorpius and the Peacekeepers would have their heads on a bantomik sticks. It would be even worse if the Scarrans somehow got wind of it. And given their luck normally, let alone how it was running lately, that was a good possibly of froth-mouth lizard faces showing up too.   
If the plan they had come up with were to succeed at all... they were going to need Berret's help in stacking the odds more in their favor as they carried it out.  
Chiana also knew very well that after what had passed between the two of them, she really didn't have the right to request anything more of Berret... or if she wanted to, knowing what she now knew about him.  
Still he was their best option and they needed his assistance one final time. She just hoped that asking for his aid again wouldn't lead to more needless deaths.  
Deaths and violence she knew she would be responsible for unleashing if it all turned wrong.   
There was no other choice for John and Aeryn's sake but to do what she had come down to the bay to do, so she might as well get on with it.  
  
"Berret?" she called tentatively from behind him, trying not to stumble over the name she had given him in her apprehension. He stiffened ever so slightly again at her voice.  
"Yes?" he responded in a neutral tone a few microts later. He paused once more in his work, cocking his head a little in her direction, but still not turning all the way around to look at her. His hands were still busy with something inside the engine compartment.  
"How's everything coming?" she asked, attempting to sound bright and casual. She then bit her lower lip and cursed herself for how the question actually came out sounding. It made it seem to her ears that she was asking for an update because she was anxious to have him leave.  
Berret abruptly turned back to where he had been working and began making more adjustments to something she couldn't see inside the engine compartment.  
Chiana knew then that her blurted words had sounded exactly as she thought they did to Berret also.  
"The Wraith's A.I. unit is performing a preflight systems check," he replied in a business-like manner. "I am making a fine adjustment on the after-burner fuel-mix injector in this engine. I should be ready to depart within an arn."  
"Ah... I see..." said Chiana pensively, she had narrowly timed her visit and pending request as it turned out. "There's something I want to talk to you about. About you leaving that is." With his back to her, she couldn't get a hint as to what he might have been thinking... or more likely what he might have let slip for a split microt as the ex-Enforcer normally showed little on his face.  
Instead the Shrike seemed to become even more immersed with what he was doing at her statement.  
"Within the arn is the best I am able to do," he told her absently while still tinkering.  
Chiana frowned with the ever-increasing sinking feeling she felt. Berret had again taken her statement to mean that she wanted him gone off Moya as soon as possible.  
  
"No, that's not what I came down here for," she countered and took a step closer to him. "I need to talk to you, and I need you to turn around and look at me."  
Something clanked inside the cowling as some tool Berret was using slipped. The ex-assassin exhaled slightly as if becoming annoyed with the work and the interruption. Chiana wasn't fooled by what to someone else might have only been a subtle and seemingly common appearance. She might not have been able to see the incidents with her own eyes at the time, but she did recall several occasions where Berret had put on the facade of emotions when the situation called for him to mimic them. It was part of the way he could camouflage himself in a group of people if need be. The very fact he put on the slight "irritated" act told Chiana that on some level she was unsettling the man - and she wasn't sure if that was good or bad.  
"I am very busy, Chiana," Berret explained. "I have to finish this adjustment if I wish to leave on my schedule. You are now well and almost healed, you have the means of restoring your shipmates, I am no longer required and my business with the Syndicate has waited long enough to be concluded."  
"You mean your revenge," Chiana blurted out without thinking. She bit her tongue an instant later and wished she could take the comment back. Antagonizing the Shrike would not get her his aid.  
"Yes," was all Berret said in return from under the engine cowling.  
She moved the rest of the way over to the still working Shrike and tentatively laid a hand on his back. She felt his muscles tense in response. She had been attempting to let her instincts guide her with handling the Shrike but she wondered if the contact had been another error on her part. It seemed she'd succeeded in botching the meeting from the very moment she walked through the bay doorway she thought to herself.  
"I'm sorry," she apologized gently and without thinking about it. Surprisingly in response Berret's muscles became less tense under her fingers. Slightly encouraged, she then continued on, "This is hard enough for me as it is. Please... stop working and look at me."  
Berret froze completely for a microt or two, and then reluctantly extracted himself all the way out from under the cowling. He turned to face her once he was free, his face void of expression as usual.  
  
"Thank you," Chiana said to him, the Shrike responded with a small neutral nod of acknowledgement. Her dark eyes turned sad as she looked up at him and made herself get on with the unpleasant task. "I want... I want to tell you, how sorry I am for what happen between us. I never should have said those things - or acted the way I have."  
"It is not your fault," Berret replied tonelessly. "I am what I was made to be."  
Chiana shook her head. "I know that... I should have always kept that in mind. That it was going to be difficult for you to adjust. And that you came looking for me because you thought I was the only one you could turn too for help... and I let you down."  
A quick flare that might have been anger flashed across Berret's eyes. Chiana wasn't too sure she had really caught the look, it had passed so fleetingly. Berret's neutral guise reasserted itself just as quickly.  
"I need no one's help," Berret said nonchalantly. "You have done nothing wrong... and owe me nothing."   
Chiana knew that wasn't true and that in his way, Berret was trying to absolve her from any of the blame she was feeling. It didn't help make what she had to ask of him any easier.  
"A lie?" she asked while looking up at him with searching eyes. A slight smile started to crease her lips; it unexpectedly struck her as extraordinary that the Shrike's first attempt at lying had been to save her feelings.  
Her smile just as abruptly died when Berret's empty gaze told her he failed to recognize the significance.   
"As you wish," the Shrike replied, letting her know that it didn't matter if she accepted his statement at face value or not.  
She momentary looked away from the ex-Enforcer. It was then she understood that Berret had given up in some way. At one time he might have made an attempt to understand what she found engaging about his comment, now he just stood there, blankly waiting for her to continue. She had dealt Berret an unforeseen blow by refusing his offer to leave Moya with him, made worse when she revealed her desire to stay with D'argo. Then she had asked him to help steal the bio-reconstruction device from the prison - only to be shocked by what he had done to accomplish that goal for her.  
Their reunion had been far from perfect.  
And she knew without doubt that she had failed him at every turn - including her promise of being his friend.  
  
Their confrontation after the events on Qujagan world had only crushed what remaining hope he held for himself. Now Berret seemed to be turning more cold and stone-like by the arn. Withdrawing further into himself, sliding backwards into that machine-like thing the Syndicate had made of him.  
Now here she was about to betray him in a way once again, to use him once more after she had practically slapped him in the face and turned her back on him after what he had done to achieve the goal she herself asked of him.  
With excruciating pain she realized she had no other choice but to use him again.  
Rygel had been wrong. With all the immoral things she done in her past, what she was about to do in the next few moments would far outstrip them all as being the worse thing she'd ever done.  
She turned pain-filled eyes back to the man, only to find he had gone back to working on the Wraith's engine while she contemplated her thoughts. Apparently he finished whatever he was doing, as she saw him reconnected some sort of cable, then withdraw a few tools from the compartment before closing the cowling and locking it down.  
"Berret, I..." she started as he turned around again. He paused, gazing at her with eyes as blue as ice. In a sudden rush what she needed came pouring out of her. The Shrike listened, showing no emotion or particular interest. When she finished her story and crucial request, the ex-assassin simply gave her a one-word answer.  
Chiana nodded numbly at his response, then turned and silently headed for the maintenance bay doorway.  
  
Outside in the corridor and out of sight from the Shrike, she paused to lean weakly up against a bulkhead; her sore eyes began to haze with sadness.  
She had completed the unpleasant task to the best of her ability and would now suffer the consequences for all she had done. After all that had passed between them, she had been a fool to think Berret would answer in any other way than what he had.   
Any other time in the past, it would have been easy for her to go on without a second thought or to feel anything like regret because a desire didn't work out the way she wanted it too. Events sometime never turned out the way you always hoped they would no matter how badly you wanted it.  
People came into your life, sometime they left because of things you said or did, sometimes you used them when you had too to survive - sometimes they used you. Sometimes they died... and there was nothing you could do about it even if you tried.  
She'd learned long ago that life was rarely if ever fair and to accept it when things got frelled... or just plain crashed and burned.  
She wondered why the cold feeling of failure in her stomach and the ache in her heart were so difficult to accept this time?  
The Nebari girl headed back to her quarters, not wishing to run into any of her other crewmates after this devastation.  
Her shipmates would just have to wait a few microns for the results of her task while she took time to compose herself again.  
  
Berret silently watched the gray girl turn and leave the bay.  
It was evident by the slightly stricken look on Chiana's face that the girl was actually hoping for a different answer from the assassin. He knew that coming to him and asking for his assistance once again had been troublesome for the Nebari female, especially after her reaction to what the Hynerian had told her had happened on Qujagan planet.  
He vaguely wondered how she could have expected a different response from him?  
He turned and moved over to a nearby tool cart and began replacing the tools he had been using. Chiana had asked her petition knowing now how unstable he was becoming by the arn - it was no longer a secret from her. He had seen the look in her eyes while she had confronted him in the corridor outside his temporary quarters.   
He slammed a spanner wrench into its compartment.  
She knew how he was unable to control the urge to kill. Chiana knew because Rygel had filled her in, in great detail on what he'd witnessed. And still, she had come to ask.  
In a sudden blinding rage, he ceased a spike-like tool used to probe circuit connections. The bay filled with a sudden sound of tortured metal as he drove it through the side of the tool chest.  
He had seen the horror... the disgust in her eyes when she confronted him about his actions on Qujaga. The pain and loss in her voice as she told him she couldn't stand to be near him. And still... she came there to ask again!  
The destruction of the probe tool wasn't satisfying enough. The Shrike curled his fingers tightly and repeatedly pounded the tool chest with his fist, letting the pain fuel his rage and drowned the voice in his head. The metal case groaned and dented under the assault. Berret kept it up until the bones in his hand shattered. Stopping only after the pain of the microbes repairing the damage was just as great as the repeated breaking of his hand against the metal toolbox.  
He had seen how she couldn't even bear to be within sight of him these last few solar days... how it must have sickened her to request his help again... how could she think of asking for his help again after Qujaga?  
He stepped forward and kicked the cart over, spilling the contents all over the maintenance bay floor.  
He panted hard as he recalled the tormented look that Chiana had worn a moment ago, knowing that despite everything that was at stake, everything she now knew about him - she desperately did not wanted to hear the response he had given her. The Nebari had hoped that he'd say something else.  
He'd dispassionately watched while the ghost in his mind chuckled with delight as the hope had died in her dark eyes and the bitter grief replaced it.  
How could she think a creature such as he could answer any other way?  
  
He forced his heavy breathing to slow as he took back control of himself. His hand was a torrent of pain; he looked downward and could physically see the limb and its digits pulse and mend before his eyes. This was far from normal even for the massive damage he'd done to it. He wondered how long it would be before the microbes burned him out. He decided it wouldn't matter for much longer and then ignored his healing hand.  
He turned back to his ship a moment later.  
"Wraith?" he asked out loud in a rasping tone.  
_**"On line, Shrike457,"**_ the artificial intelligence unit of the craft responded immediately from a speaker in the hatch's in-set control panel.  
"Status?"  
_**"Diagnostic check complete. All systems at 100%. Hetch drive system: online. Stealth system: online. Weapons system: online..."**_ the A.I. began to report.  
"Stop," the Shrike ordered, "Scan recent adjustments to portside after-burner and report."  
_**"Portside after-burner reports functioning now at 100% efficiency."**_  
"Good," Berret said idly, not actually expecting the ship's computer to reply.  
The A.I. made several testing sounds that indicated another task had just been completed.  
_**"Pre-flight checks now complete. Wraith-Class Stealth craft ready for space flight,"**_ said the A.I. _**"Awaiting next orders and/or new mission parameters."  
**_Berret grunted absently and flexed his almost repaired hand. His mending joints audibly cracked and his abused flesh still burned, as did his stomach. The microbes made their usual demand to be fed after rebuilding the limb he so nearly destroyed a few moments earlier. Even their greed was beginning to grow as the Shrike noticed it took more and more protein intake to satisfy them.  
That didn't matter either, at least sometimes the pain made the rage and the voice go away for a while, but only sometimes.  
"Wraith," Berret said a few microts later, "Cancel pre-flight status and return to stand-by mode."  
_**"Acknowledged, Shrike457,"**_ responded the computer immediately. _**"All systems powering down. Stand-by mode engaging."  
**_Through the open hatchway, Berret could see control panels go dark as the ship shut itself down. He turned back and faced the doorway that Chiana had departed through just microns before.  
The inner conflict had been obvious when she requested he stay and help with what they needed, the distress of being forced to ask a killer... a murderer for assistance, and knowing they desperately needed it.   
And knowing he'd slaughter more victims if given the chance.  
The compunction she felt with his answer had been plainly obvious on her pale features.   
He reached inside the hatchway and withdrew a satchel from a storage bin.  
Just as he knew a negative answer to her request would leave the crew in dire straits, he also knew that there was no reason for him to stay and help. He did not owe the others anything, including the pair in status that he had never met. And he considered his debt to the Nebari girl paid with what he'd already done so far for her as she healed.  
Still Berret could not get the look of anguish on Chiana's face out of his mind when he told her, "Yes."  
Some great part of the Nebari girl had wanted him to refuse her appeal.  
He had meant to refuse, but when he opened his mouth to speak the words - they wouldn't form.  
She had asked and he couldn't say no. Whether it was for her sake, the misguided need to be near her for just a while longer, or for some darker reason only the voice in his mind knew, the Shrike couldn't truly say.  
The collar's ghost chortled malevolently in the background of his thoughts.   
  
Berret considered that if Chiana was willing to shoulder the burden of being responsible for what he might do for the sake of her two friends - perhaps the trade was a good one then? There had to be something the gray girl saw in her shipmates that she would make the sacrifice for them... just as she had originally reached out to help him. She had thought there was something worth saving about a Shrike Enforcer who had been assigned to guard her while she awaited a brutal Syndicate execution.  
It had not been Chiana's fault that Berret had let her down in her assessment of him.   
He was probably going to die anyway, either by the malfunctioning microbes or in his vendetta against Arckatius and the Black Syndicate. How could one man alone hope to win against such a vast underworld organization or against an enemy from within his own body? The best he could hope for was to see the Scarran dead at his feet for a brief moment or die with his hands around Arckatius' throat. Maybe even with the Bat'Rellite blades the Kingpin had given him buried in his own Scarran guts would be just as good also.  
It would be better than the slow death the microbes would probably lead him too... if that ranting ghost in his mind didn't drive him totally mad first.  
Whatever the final outcome - let the return of Chiana's friends be the one good thing he'd accomplished in his short remembered lifetime... even if it turned out to be the final act of his life. He told himself that if he could leave Chiana with this one last... gift, he would have earned the right to his revenge against the Syndicate. The scales would be balanced in the Goddess' eyes and no one could naysay him, no matter whatever he chose to do to Arckatius and his people.  
Then he could die... and be free of his living hezmana... of his feelings for _her_.  
If he could keep the voice and urge under control long enough to do some good. _"Do this,"_ he silently bargained with the phantom, _"Do this for her without unnecessary havoc... and I'll give you Arckatius and his group to do with as we wish... countless souls and a sea of blood... killing until we can't raise our arms any longer or we drown in the gore we will spill."_   
The voice liked that deal... it liked the arrangement a lot.  
As a after-thought, Berret commed Pilot and asked that the helmsman have the Wraith transferred from the current maintenance bay to a parking bay in the Leviathan's hanger.  
His departure would be delayed a little longer.  
He picked up the bag with his few belongings and headed out of the chamber to return to his previous quarters, following in the Nebari girl's steps. 


	12. Chapter 11

Scorpius stood in the middle of the massive warehouse surrounded by his five Peacekeeper bodyguards.  
The quintet of men in their black and red battle armor and dark faceless helmets scanned the area, pulse rifles held at non-threatening port arms position, but ready to fire at the first sign of an ambush. Around them were the huge metal racks and baskets that stored surplus parts for whatever the place manufactured during the daylight arns. The storage facility was like a large maze of racks and bins; and eerily silent this time of the night cycle. His booted foot shifted slightly and he heard glass grind under his heel. A smile appeared on his sallow face; the human was taking no chances with this impromptu meeting he'd asked for with the military scientist.  
Somebody had taken the precaution of preparing the meeting area by smashing out most of the lights. The few that remained made sort of a path that the half-Scarran judged to have ended close to the exact center of the immense warehouse. The path of lights halted abruptly there and Scorpius assumed that he was to wait at that spot for the outlaw group to make contact with him.  
Idly he pressed down with his boot heel and felt more of the thin glass shards disintegrate into fine grit.  
"Oh my, somebody is going to be quite upset with all this vandalism in the morning," he murmured to himself in cynical humor.  
"Sir?" asked one of his commando guards after the low remark.  
Scorpius waved the comment and the trooper's question off.  
"Nothing," he said, than turned to the squad leader. "Scan the area for life signs," he ordered on a hunch.  
"At once," answered the sergeant, who then directed another man to perform the procedure.  
A private held up the triform-shaped hand scanner and made several passes around the area. The device made an error sound and the soldier made several adjustments before giving up and smacking the machine a few times on the side with the flat of his hand.  
"Problems, private?" Scorpius asked with some amusement in his voice. How like these low-intellectual grunts to think that hitting a finely tuned sensor instrument would make it work properly.  
The private straighten up almost to attention after realizing he had earned himself Scorpius' full interest.  
"No, sir," the young Sebacean began, "Well... yes, sir," he changed his answer to almost right away. "There seems to be something blocking the scanner from functioning properly"  
"Ah!" replied the leather-clad half-breed. "Could it be a class-five alternating static field interfering with your scanner"  
The trooper made some quick adjustments on his tool and then looked up in surprise.  
"Why yes! It is, sir!" he exclaimed, "There is a static wave present. How did you know?" he then asked in awe.  
"Because setting up several static generators inside the building is exactly what I would have done," he explained. "Crichton is no fool. He and his group are not taking any chances that we can find them until they're ready to reveal themselves"  
He took several steps away from his escort, scanning the darkness around them but not even his Scarran sight could detect anyone hiding close-by.  
"It matters little that the scanners are impeded," Scorpius said to his men. "We came here to negotiate in good faith with whatever Crichton wanted to see me for, and we shall do so."

He glanced around the warehouse once more and then called out into the darkness.  
"John? John, I'm here," Scorpius shouted out. "I give you my word you have nothing to fear from my escort. Braca assigned them for my protection and they have strict orders not to harm you... or anyone in your party"  
The words echoed in return to him from deep inside the large structure, but nothing else answered back. He held up the strange metal and glass game piece that he recognized from Crichton's Earth game called Chess. If he remembered right, it was the piece that represented the Black King, and it had accompanied the simple message that he meet with the human here, at this time and place - alone.  
Crichton had to know that Scorpius wouldn't travel without a guard unit anymore then he would meet the Peacekeeper commander without his friends as back up. What the human meant by alone was without a Peacekeeper Command Carrier or Commandant Grayza in tow.  
The woman had been hard to distract from discovering the meeting, Peacekeeper Command still had Grayza and Scorpius both under review for the ill-fated summit with the Scarran Emperor, Staleek. They seemed to be waiting to see what the Imperium would do next after tangling with Crichton and his crew, and their act of destroying the Crystherium Utila plant, which the Scarran Ruling Caste needed so desperately. Scorpius had bought himself some time with Peacekeeper Command by convincing his higher ups that he could still salvage his wormhole project - with Crichton's help. Grayza had made a similar promise that she could hand John Crichton with his knowledge over to Command for interrogation and extraction. It had become a sort of race between the two Peacekeeper commanders to see who would win their way back into the graces of High Command - and who would probably face execution for failing. PK Command seemed to have a winning hand no matter which way the race turned out.  
It didn't advance matters any that the Scarran Imperium would also soon have a reward on the heads of Crichton and his crew... if they didn't already.

"Come now, John," Scorpius called out next. Allowing a slight hint of wariness to creep into his voice. "Need I remind you that it was you who called me here? Come out so we can get to the business at hand"  
Again no one answered. "I'm growing tired of this game, John" Scorpius warned. "I know you're here. You would not have gone through all that trouble to get a convert message to me... and not show up"  
This time there was the muffled sound of something striking the floor a short way off in the darkness.  
Scorpius snapped his head around in that direction, but was unable to pinpoint the exact location of the disturbance. By the way his guards looked about in various other areas, they had failed to determine a direction also. The noise had sounded as if it had been deliberately obscured in some way to avoid indicating a positive locality. The half-Scarran scientist smiled - the game was now afoot it seemed. The noise was obviously meant to be a lure of some type. Possibly a clue as to where the actual meeting was to take place. Scorpius made a silent hand gesture, commanding his men to search for the source of the sound. Immediately four of the commandos peeled off to investigate the area. Leaving Scorpius and the squad leader still standing alone under the lights.

"Never fear! My men will not harm anyone they find," the half-Scarran called out in reassurance.  
Several microns passed with no other sounds or communications from the troopers. Finally, the team leader began to comm his men only to have none of the four answer him over the link.  
The sergeant nervously fingered his pulse rifle. "I don't like this, sir," the man commented. "It has to be a trap"  
Scorpius held up one hand to halt the statement, and the soldier's building unease. He sniffed at the air and bared his teeth slyly.  
"No, sergeant... none of your men are dead. There's no blood in the air... yet. Something else is going on here. We will wait and see what Crichton has in mind"  
Just as the PK scientist finished his explanation, several of the closer lights that had led the group to the center of the warehouse blinked out with the sound of breaking glass as something smashed them. Within microts, Scorpius and his man were left standing alone in a sole circle of light. "Someone knocked out those lights. Find them, but do nothing to harm them!" Scorpius ordered the remaining man.  
More afraid of the Scarran half-breed than whatever awaited him in the darkness, the sergeant slinked off to carry out his orders. As the lone commando disappeared from sight, Scorpius closed his eyes and let his senses wander the area. He had an intuition that whatever was neutralizing his men wanted them safely out of the way before approaching him. If that were the case, he had no choice but to sacrifice his guard to fulfill the provisions of whatever was out in the darkness.  
A few moments later, the vibration in the air that was the sergeant cease to register on his senses. Meaning the man was no longer mobile and had apparently met the same fate as his comrades.  
Scorpius waited a few more microns for his senses to tell him the unseen opponent was near, but they revealed nothing to him. Disappointedly, it was more a primal instinct that warned him that whatever had hunted his men was close-by.

"I know you're here," he called out again, "Whoever you are." Neither Scorpius's tone nor the tempo of his voice did anything to betray his slight uneasiness with the situation. It was then that he began to realize that his instincts were warning him this was something other that one of Moya's crew out there in the gloom of the warehouse.  
Perhaps Crichton had found himself a new ally in the short time since they separated? The scientist could feel cold predatory eyes watching him at that very moment.  
Scorpius always made it an instinctual habit to appear as if he were always in control; to do anything else within the life he had led thus far might invite disaster... or worse. This moment was no different than any other he had faced. He had no choice now but to hold his ground and see what unfolded in the next few microts. "It's a mystery why you didn't kill my men when you are so clearly able to. But I have to assume that by not doing so, that you want something from me. Show yourself and tell me what it is," he invited.  
A slight noise from behind him told Scorpius he had guessed the wrong direction his visitor would come from. Still, he made the turn in that direction look casual and he was just in time to see a black shape separate itself from the shadows. The form took a few steps forward until he could just see it was a humanoid shape wearing a long pitch-black garment of some sort. The half-Scarran took note that his vision could barely detect a heat signature from the stranger and he wondered for a moment if it might be a machine in humanoid form.  
"Greetings," Scorpius said with a slight bow of his head, but never taking his eyes off the lurking being.  
The figure remained silent as if studying the scientist. Finally, one more step brought it into the brief circle of light. The being titled it's head upward slightly and Scorpius found himself gazing into a Sebacean-like face under the obscure black hood of a cloak. There was no mistaking the clear look of hatred in the piercing silver-tinted blue eyes there.  
"Did Crichton send you?" Scorpius asked, ignoring everything else.

In response the man let his cloak fall loosely open to reveal the gunmetal-colored armor beneath. Scorpius didn't need to read the icons or glyphs etched into the metal to know what manner of creature he now faced.  
His face twisted into a sardonic smile, despite what he thought were ominous circumstances now.  
"A Shrike Enforcer," he announced with no apparent sentiment. It appears he had been wrong; he had walked into a trap set by the Black Syndicate. Apparently the Scarran Imperium had decided to have him assassinated after all and had given the duty to one of the underworld criminal groups.  
"Tell me... what Syndicate House are you with," he asked casually, as if he weren't staring his own death in the face. "I find I am oddly curious to know if the Emperor thought my death worth the services of a High House assassin? One might find that precaution a compliment, would they not"  
The corner of the Shrike's lip turned up in a slight sneer for a split microt. Scorpius found the flash of emotion interesting and upgraded his evaluation of the Enforcer. "Perhaps my death is indeed important to the Imperium if a Master Shrike was dispatched instead of a collared assassin," he thought to himself.  
He held up the chess-piece and added, "How did you know to send me this? And how did you get it? The strategy was most brilliant... I will give you and your masters that much. A well-played move... pun intended"  
The Shrike's eyes now squinted in contempt.  
"I am with no House, Scarran," the assassin finally replied, somehow making his dry dispassionate tone still hold a strong hint of venom. "And had I been sent to eradicate you, you would be dead all ready."

Scorpius almost blinked in surprise, but caught the gesture before he could give anything away. He'd never heard of an Enforcer that didn't belong to one Syndicate House or another. There was no such thing as a "freelance" Shrike in the Imperium. Unless this one had gone rogue! The thought burst upon him like a ray of light.  
The incidents of Shrikes breaking from their Houses were rare and they were always hunted down and destroyed when it did happen. He now realized that somehow this one had gotten free and joined up with Crichton and his crew. And they were using the killer's skills as a safety precaution before arriving at the meeting with him. How wise and ingenious, Scorpius thought silently with a growing hint of admiration for the outlaw group's prescience.  
The half-Scarran allowed himself to now inwardly relax with the knowledge that he probably wasn't about to be eradicated by the Syndicate assassin, at least for the moment.  
"Then can you tell me why I am here?" he asked the cloaked man.  
"Someone wishes to see you, Scarran," the Shrike replied. He almost spat the racial name out as if it were a vile oath. Scorpius smiled at having found a weakness he could exploit in the Enforcer so quickly. He obviously despised Scarrans. It also went some way to confirming his theory that the Shrike was a rogue. The Syndicate would have a high reward out on the Shrike's termination, so the assassin would probably go out of his way not to draw unwanted attention to himself if he were smart. And that most likely meant not leaving a trail of dead Peacekeeper commanders behind him.  
"I am only half Scarran," Scorpius said as a further test, after filing away his mental observation.  
"That is half too much," replied the Enforcer in a near dead tone.  
"Be that is something I cannot help at the moment, I would then be most grateful if you would take me to whomever summoned me here," the half-breed replied with a scheming grin. "Unless you plan to alter your task and kill me anyway"  
The Shrike's lips turned upward in a grin that did not touch his ice colored eyes. "There yet maybe a time for that," he said in a barely audible whisper that held the hint of something unhinged.  
The scientist filed the comment away also along with the sudden observation that the ex-Enforcer may not be too mentally stable after all. The way his emotions ran the gamut of extremes the assassin just might be balance on the edge of sanity. If that were the case the Shrike was going to be more unpredictable than he first assessed. Scorpius found that despite the minor impediment, he had a sudden twisted interest in the way the Shrike must be complicating life for Crichton and the others... it had to be very amusing.  
The Shrike turned away without another word and Scorpius followed him into the dark aisles.

Scorpius trailed behind the Enforcer through a number of twists and turns among the racks of boxes and machine parts. The half-Scarran tried again to read the Shrike's heat signatures but was mostly unable to just as before. He smiled to himself again as he figured out why.  
"That's a very interesting garment you have. Acquarian silk is it not?" he asked almost idly.  
The Shrike barely turned to acknowledge his question, choosing the let his continued silence show his contempt for the being he was escorting deeper into the warehouse. Scorpius chuckled lightly to himself. He knew he was right. He'd heard that some of the higher Syndicate Houses equip their Enforcers with the expensive rare silk cloaks. While being almost indestructible and silent for a silk fabric, the material and weave also masked body heat signatures. A very useful attribute when you might have to send your assassins out after other Scarrans, who could see body heat signatures. The cloak also gave him a lead as to where the Enforcer might have originated from... should he decide to look into it sometime later.  
The Shrike finally stopped at a large steel door set into the building's wall on a rail. He lifted the latch and shoved the door aside, revealing a workshop.  
"Inside," the Enforcer instructed as he stepped to one side of the doorway.  
Scorpius made a tiny mock bow and followed his instruction. Stepping through the door he found himself standing before Ka'D'Argo and his leveled Qualta-rifle.  
"I have brought the Klaz-kik'," the Shrike announced as he rolled the door closed behind them.  
Scorpius allowed himself a smirk at the Enforcer's use of the Scarran slur for "half-breed"  
"Perfect pronunciation," the Peacekeeper scientist quipped with a hint of sarcasm.  
"What of the rest?" asked the Luxan of the assassin.  
"Neutralized"  
"How many did you kill?" inquired Rygel as he floated into view besides D'argo.  
"None... as instructed"  
The Hynerian snorted. "That's a first," he retorted. The Shrike made an obvious point of ignoring the small being for the moment.  
Scorpius took a slow non-threatening step forward.  
"I assure you, I came only with my bodyguard detachment," he told them. "It would not have been wise with the current situation with Grayza to travel without them"  
'Still after your mivonks, is she?" Rygel asked with a gleeful sneer.  
Scorpius regarded the Hynerian ruler for a instant and then replied with a dismissing smile,  
"Amongst other things... but that is a discussion for later, Dominar. Right now, I want to know why Crichton summoned me. Where is he"  
D'argo gestured with his Qualta-rifle for the half-breed to keep his place.  
"First things first," the Luxan warned. Turning to the Shrike, he asked, "Did you search him well before bringing him here"  
"No"  
D'argo rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Why the hezmana NOT!" he demanded irately.  
The Shrike cocked his head. "My instructions were not to touch the Scarran, no matter what," he supplied.  
The warrior exhaled sharply in exasperation at the reply.  
"I meant not to kill him or use anymore force then was necessary to bring him here securely!" D'argo shot back.  
"Be more specific next time," the Enforcer answered indifferently.

If the curiosity about why the human had called him there weren't picking away at his mind like Halozian Fire-ants, Scorpius would have enjoyed the humorous parody being played out before him. He did however make another mental note that the Shrike appeared to dislike D'argo almost as much as he did Scarrans.  
The Luxan obvious had no love for the assassin either, but past experiences with the warrior told him that D'argo liked few other beings at the best of times anyway.  
"Search him then!" D'argo barked.  
"As you wish"  
Berret stepped forward to comply with a maniac grin suddenly on his face. It was then that the warrior decided the hasty order had been a mistake. The Shrike was more than several times stronger than a normal Sebacean, and it was obvious he had no intention of being gentle with Scorpius in the least.  
They needed the Peacekeeper scientist in good health and unharmed if they wanted to secure his help with restoring Aeryn and John.  
Berret "accidentally" twisting or breaking a few of his limb while frisking the half-breed would not help them toward that end in the slightest.  
"No! Wait!" D'argo countermanded. "Shrike, you stay where you are. Rygel... you search Scorpius"  
"Why me?" the Hynerian immediately complained. "Let Chiana's nik-nik do it"  
"Because I want you to do it... NOW, DO IT!" bellowed the Luxan in building frustration.  
Scorpius exhaled and rolled his eyes in annoyance.  
"By all means... somebody get this over with and search me so that we make get on with whatever you called me here for," he spat. "And I am quickly losing my patience... and I want to know where Crichton is now"  
"In a few microts," D'argo told him. "Rygel"  
The warrior's Qualta rifle drifted over in the Dominar's direction as he used it to indicate that the small being should get on with the weapon pat down.  
The sword rifle settled for a moment longer on Rygel then was really necessary, giving the Hynerian ruler the impression that D'argo might decide to shoot the Hynerian Royal out of sheer annoyance if he debated the matter any longer with him.  
"Oh... all right," Rygel muttered and then moved his thronesled closer to Scorpius. "Hands up," he instructed the Peacekeeper commander.  
Scorpius lifted his arms and quietly endured the search.  
"He's clean," Rygel announced a moment later as he moved back away from the half-breed. "But don't forget the single shot pulse rod he keeps inside his coolant system," the Hynerian warned.  
"He'll be dead before he can get to it," the Luxan supplied as he lowered his rifle toward the floor.  
"That is for certain," Scorpius heard the Shrike hiss lowly from behind him. The comment was pitched just loud enough for only him to hear. The half-Scarran chose not to give the assassin the satisfaction of reacting, and instead focused solely on D'argo and Rygel.  
"I have no intention of trying anything," Scorpius assured them once more. "I am only interested in why John Crichton called me here"  
"See that it stay's that way," the Luxan added.

It had been decided that Rygel would be the best crewmember to tactfully explain the situation to Scorpius without portraying the groups' need in too badly a light.  
D'argo was still of the opinion that their story could do nothing but reveal their weakness to the half Scarran scientist... but he also agreed that they didn't have much choice and letting the Hynerian Dominar handle the negotiations was the best option. Just as it had been the best play to let the small ruler arrange John's prior fake surrender, which led to the destruction of Scorpius' wormhole project and a Command Carrier.  
Berret for his part mostly ignored the talks, as they held no personal interest for him. Instead his mind drifted back to their departure from Moya a few arns before and the few parting words he'd shared with Chiana before the negotiation group boarded the Transport Pod to head for their rendezvous.  
The Nebari girl had quietly assured him that she had faith he would complete the task with a minimum of violence.  
The words had sounded plainly hollow to his ears... but somehow they still seem to re-enforce his determination to hold the urge to slaughter his opponents in check when the moment came to take out the half-breed's bodyguards.  
Chiana plainly had had little doubt though she attempted to hide it, that given the chance, he wouldn't have been able to stop himself from killing. Rygel and Stark supported that theory stridently, while D'argo didn't seem to care who he killed as long as it wasn't Scorpius or the female Kalish that might have accompanied him.

As it turned out, no Kalish of any gender had accompanied the half-breed, and the five commandoes had fallen easily to his skills.  
He had to admit even with the Nebari's attempt at encouragement, it had been hard to curb the desire to eradicate the soldiers. Every instinct he had screamed at him to kill them as he hunted each man through the darkened warehouse. The voice in his head pushed for him to finish off his prey each time he took one down, but he fought the yearning with Chiana's words; bribing it further with the promise of what was to come when he left to hunt the Syndicate. He succeeded in only rendering the guards unconscious one way or another. Though he had to also admit - some of the ways he accomplished that end were none-to-gentle for the soldiers.  
The half-breed had been the hardest prey to restrain himself from. Just the mixture of the hated Scarran heritage in his features was enough to make the ex-Enforcer's blood boil with thoughts of revenge. His condescending superior attitude alone was almost enough to make Berret willingly forget his promise to Chiana and bury both brace blades in the half-Scarran's throat.  
Berret had wanted to slash that smirk off Scorpius' face... starting from the bastard's knees and working his way on upwards.  
The Luxan had warned him to be wary, as the half-breed was a master manipulator and was much stronger than his appearance would lead one to believe. Berret found he liked that attribute about the abomination... should he decide to eradicate Scorpius at some later point - he didn't want it to be over with too soon.  
No Scarran, half-breed or not, deserved an easy death as far as the ex-Enforcer was concerned.

While Berret's thoughts had wandered, Rygel had finished laying out his explanation of John and Aeryn's predicament and the assistance the crew was asking him for. The ex-Enforcer's attention came back to the group as Scorpius crossed his arms over his armored chest and began to pace slightly back and forth.  
"So as usual, Crichton has found himself in trouble... and now you need my help in getting him out of it," Scorpius recanted. "Well, if you put it that way... yes," replied the Dominar reluctantly. "We can use your help in finding the reconstruction process"  
Scorpius turned and looked at the group with deep interest in his eyes.  
"And what is to prevent me from just hunting you down and taking Crichton remains and the machine you stole"  
D'argo's weapon snapped back up and centered on the half-Scarran's chest. "Then you don't leave this room alive," he snarled. There was a sound of ringing metal from behind Scorpius and the Luxan's attention shifted there. "Shrike!" he bellowed, "Do not...!" The muzzle of the Qualta rifle abruptly raised up a bit to point over the half-breed's shoulder, to somewhere at the rear him.  
Scorpius turned in time to see the Shrike less than a half pace behind him with blades raised to cut him down.  
Berret froze in that position, eye's blazing with silver fire... but he did not strike.  
Instead, he un-cocked his arm slowly and let the blades coil back up into his brace. He muttered a low curse that not even the half-Scarran could make out and drifted back in obvious agitation into the corner of the room he had occupied just a microt before the outburst. For all his visible reaction, Scorpius could have been watching bacteria in a test tube rather than almost being killed. D'argo rolled his eyes, half in annoyance - half in relief, as he relaxed his combat stance, while Rygel floated over to the Peacekeeper scientist.  
"It would be best that you keep your thinking out loud to a minimum, so we don't have anymore 'misunderstandings'," advise the Dominar. "Chiana's pet can be unpredictable at the best of times." Rygel could tell by experience that Scorpius was processing new information in his head and attempting to find ways to use it to his advantage, so he added, "And in case you were thinking that your pulse armor would have protected you... you were wrong. I've seen those knives of his cut through blast-tempered steel doors like they were paper"  
Instead of alarming the half-breed, the new information seemed to interest him even more in the assassin.  
Rygel was at a loss to figure out why, but he felt the threat might be enough at any length to keep the PK commander on his toes from now on, and less likely to cause trouble.

A few microts later, Scorpius clasped both hands together and gave the crewmates a grin that would have been at home on the faces of most politicians the universe wide.  
"Of course, as the Dominar said... I was merely thinking out loud," he offered. "The fact is... taking the wormhole knowledge I need by force is no longer an option at this point. Past attempts at coercion have failed, and it is obvious that I need Crichton's willful cooperation to succeed. I will help you find the process for the machine on the single condition that I am allowed to plea my case for the wormhole technology to John as soon as he is back together and well again"  
"We cannot guarantee he will listen or even give you the time," replied the Luxan warrior, "But we will let you make the attempt to speak with him in return of your help"  
"That is all I ask," Scorpius said graciously.  
Berret tried to give the talks his full attention for the moment, but something was now picking at his instincts. The atmosphere in the warehouse had subtly changed in some way he couldn't consciously identify and it was making him increasingly edgy.  
"I'm glad we got that settled without bloodshed," Rygel put in, "Especially my own"  
"Good," said Scorpius. "I will make arrangement to have the machine and your two comrades' remains transferred to my new Command Carrier immediately.  
D'argo shook his head sternly. "No. You will perform the work aboard Moya at a secured location of our choosing... with your Command Carrier nowhere near. We're not that trusting. You can send for whatever equipment you think you need from your ship before you leave with us for Moya"  
Scorpius only smiled. "That is agreeable also. I have no such issues with trust," he answered slyly. "I will however need Sikozu's assistance so I will send for her also if that is all right"  
"By all means... bring your Kalish tralk if you need to," Rygel sneered.  
The uneasy feeling Berret had was growing constantly, without realizing it he'd found that he'd drifted further back into the shadows made by an assortment of tool racks in the room. He focused more on his hearing and he thought he might have heard a noise that did not belong outside the rolling steel door to the workshop.  
"Whatever," D'argo was saying, "Just make it quick. We will not be hanging around this sector any longer than absolutely necessary"  
"I will have the things I need here within the arn," Scorpius assured him.  
Berret cocked an ear toward the doorway. The scrap of boot leather gave the intruder away a microt later.  
Before he could warn the others in the group, the steel door rolled open with a crash and a squad of Peacekeeper storm troopers poured into the tool room with leveled pulse rifles at ready. Several soldiers shouted orders at the group not to move as an officer walked in behind his unit, pushing a bound and gagged Chiana before him. Not willing to be left behind on Moya while insisting she could help, the nearly healed gray girl had been left on watch at their hidden transport ship.  
As he cleared the doorway, the officer shoved the Nebari girl hard and she tripped and fell to the floor with a muffled grunt.

"Chiana!" D'argo cried and made an attempt to rush to her aid, only to be halted by the upraised rife of a trooper who indicated that the Luxan was to drop his weapon. D'argo led the Qualta rifle fall from his hand as he realized the odds weren't in his favor. He scanned the room quickly and noticed that the Shrike was nowhere in sight. "The bastard assassin fled and left us here to our fates... the coward!" the warrior thought to himself in a growing rage.  
Rygel turned on Scorpius as the soldiers moved in to search him for hidden weapons.  
"You lying frellnik!" he shouted at the half-breed. "You brought more men to trap us after all"  
"They're not mine," the scientist protested just as he was being searched as well.  
"Then whose are they?" D'argo demanded to know in a growl.  
"They're mine," said a voice from the doorway. The captured group turned at the same time as a female figure stepped in to join them.  
"Well, well, well... what do we have here?" asked Commandant Grayza with a smile. 


	13. Chapter 12

"It seems I've had the good fortune to capture most my prey in one swoop," Grayza grinned as she sauntered closer to the captives. "I don't suppose you want to confess your treason now, Scorpius, and save the Central High Command the trouble of a tribunal?" she asked sweetly.  
"As I've done nothing disloyal... no," replied the scientist just as congenially.  
Grayza smiled wickedly. "As I discovered you in the company of wanted criminals and terrorists, obviously engaged in some convert conspiracy with them... I beg to differ"  
"That would be... a false assumption on your part," Scorpius replied with his own sly smile.  
"Never the less, I believe Central Command will agree with my assessment," she said coming to stand before the half-Scarran commander. "I'm sure your co-conspirators will reveal your betrayal when they are interrogated by my inquisitors on my command vessel"  
Rygel swallowed audibly at the mention of the Peacekeeper torturers awaiting them on Grayza's ship. The commander turned toward the others as if they were clearly below her notice, but had to acknowledge them as a sort of formality.  
"And one of the things they will reveal to me is the location of John Crichton and the trader Aeryn Sun," she added.  
Rygel nearly choked trying to make himself look innocent, while D'argo only glared at Grayza and her men. Chiana looked up at her lover over her gag with pleading eyes, just as the Commandant used the toe of one boot to prod the bound Nebari aside to clear a path so she could pace back and forth unobstructed before her prisoners.  
The Luxan growled low at the sight of his beloved having to squirm out of the Peacekeeper's way. "Where the frell is that damn Shrike?" he thought silently. If he had a dram of honor in his worthless hide, he would not have abandoned them, or Chiana - who he claimed to be a friend too - to this fate at Grayza's hands. Part of the big warrior found a savage satisfaction that he'd been proven right about the ex-Enforcer's fidelity.  
The only problem was that the affirmation would most probably get them all killed... in a very unpleasant manner.  
The Commandant's men completely encircled the group from Moya and Scorpius, allowing them no chance for escape. The guards' attention fully on their prisoners and their leader's oration, none of them saw or were able to halt the black form that seems to appear like a specter out of nowhere, at the rear of their female commander.  
"Mele-On," came the tomb-like voice from behind the Peacekeeper Commandant, "Don't"  
Grayza spun on her heels to look, and found the tall-cloaked figure standing there holding a pulse pistol on her.  
"YOU!" she spat with a mixture of contempt and hatred.

As usual, the Shrike seemed unaffected by any feelings of loathing projected against him. Instead he brought the pistol up closer to eye-level as if he had every intention of firing it and wanted better aim to make the shot.  
"Tell your men to drop their weapons and move away," the Enforcer instructed.  
"And if I do not?" the Commandant asked almost smugly.  
The laser-sight on the assassin's pulse pistol switched on and the red crosshairs settled dead center on Grayza's partly bared chest.  
"Then I will kill you," answered Berret in a cold monotone.  
Grayza's lips slipped into a crooked half-grin. "Kill? Not 'eradicate'?" she asked. "Kill implies murder of a personal nature. I had though murder for your kind was never of a personal nature"  
"As you wish," came the assassin's reply. The level stare told the Peacekeeper the Enforcer wasn't falling for her verbal sparring tactic.  
The smug smile faded from Grayza's face. It was obvious to all that she had little doubt the Shrike would do exactly as he said.  
"Frelling fenik!" she hissed the curse, but then motioned for her guards to lower their weapons and step away from the crewmates for the moment. As soon as the soldiers moved away, the group from Moya quickly retrieved their own weapons and put as much space between them and the Peacekeeper detachment as the cluttered workshop allowed.  
D'argo quickly freed Chiana from her bonds and surprisingly enough, Scorpius aligned himself with the big Luxan and the others without a moment's hesitation. The eager hands of the crewmates clutched weapons, but only held them pointed up partway at their opponents. Neither side bringing guns fully to bear on the other, knowing that to do so would immediately start a firefight probably none would survive in the confines of the workshop. "Let us not have a shooting match right at this moment," Scorpius told both sides an instant later. "We are all ultimately seeking the same goal... and despite what you believe Commandant, I am not your enemy"  
The woman smirked at him. "That is for Central Command to decide," she replied.  
"Be that as it may, we have a common purpose," Scorpius continued. "Please instruct your men to shoulder their rifles"  
Grayza appeared reluctant to give the command for a moment, but Berret cocked his head in such a way that it was evident that he was looking for a reason to fire his pistol if she resisted further.  
With an adverse snarl she gave the order. "Do as he says. Secure your arms"  
Her well-trained men responded immediately to the command and safe their weapons before slinging them over their shoulders. Scorpius made a gesture to Moya's crew to do the same and they followed suit, though less hurriedly and without the rapid discipline of the soldiers.  
He then turned to the assassin who still held his pistol level at the other PK commander. "If you will, Shrike... please holster your weapon as well"  
Berret gave him a glare that said he'd rather turn the gun on the half-Scarran scientist instead, and pull the trigger.  
D'argo stepped in before anything further could turn ugly. "Do as he says," the warrior instructed, "So we can get back to our own frelling business and get the hezmana back to Moya before anything else turns to dren"  
Berret looked little incline to obey the Luxan as well, but he did grudgingly lower his weapon a bit. Chiana made her way to his side as she put her own small pistol she'd just retrieved from a pile of weapons back into her belt.  
"Do as they want, Berret," she asked. "It'll be okay." Stepping closer to the armored man, she lowered her voice so only he could hear her. "You did good... now trust D'argo and Rygel... trust me"  
The Shrike's lips turned downward in a frown, but this time he did what the Nebari asked. The pulse pistol slid back into his cross-draw holster on his heavy belt, and the entire rig disappeared as his cloak covered over it once more.

"You may also dismiss your troops," Scorpius told Grayza, "You have my word as a Peacekeeper Officer that none will harm you while you are here. Consider this a truce of sorts"  
"Can you vouch for that treacherous bastard also?" she asked while pointing an accusatory finger at Berret.  
Scorpius looked momentarily surprised at the question and the rancor in the Commandant's voice directed at the assassin, but Rygel interrupted before he could ask any questions of his own.  
"Yes... you did seem to recognize Chiana's nik-nik," the Hynerian inquired. "Just where and how do you know him from, hum? And you do have the 'treacherous bastard' part right, that I can assure you"  
"Does that really frelling matter now?" put in D'argo with more than normal exasperation.  
"I have to admit, I am curious also," added Scorpius with a glace at the armored Shrike. "I'm sure we can spare a moment to satisfy our combined curiosity"  
Grayza gestured for her troops to wait outside the shop and after the heavy door rolled closed again, she granted their request, glaring once more at Berret as she spoke.  
"As well you should be curious about the Shrike. You should know what vile creature it is you have in your mist," she told them. "That fenik came aboard my Command Carrier several weekens ago... claiming to be a exiled Enforcer attempting to regain his standing in his Syndicate House by hunting down certain prey that had escaped him on his last assassination assignment for his masters, and left him with an eradication order on his head"  
She turned to look at Chiana and smiled with a hint of grim humor. "That prey he claimed to be hunting was you, child"  
"Me?" the gray girl said with some surprise.  
Grayza nodded with a cold smile. "Yes... he claimed the only way he could redeem his place in his Scarran House was to find you and carry out your eradication as he had been ordered. He proposed an alliance of sorts for our mutual benefit... he would aid me in tracking you and the others down - seeing it was Crichton I wanted - in return for transportation and safe passage through Peacekeeper territory aboard my command ship. At first I was a little hesitate in allying myself with a member of a criminal organization, but the perceived opportunity of having a Shrike assassin's legendary tacking skills at my disposal... I deemed well worth the risk considering current circumstances.  
"So we struck our bargain. He would give me Crichton, and I would help speed his search for the Nebari tralk he wanted. And with his help we traced you down fairly quickly. We were only three solar days behind you and closing in when I foolishly dispatched two attack Marauders along with the Shrike and his Wraith scout ship to intercept your Leviathan. Only as soon as they were out of scanner range, the Shrike used the weapons aboard his craft to cravenly ambush and destroy my ships. It took us almost two solar days after I realized something had gone wrong to find the sector the attack took place in. Another two solar days later we finally tracked him down to Qujaga, but we learned that he had already broken you out of prison and escaped again. It was only mere luck that we were still monitoring comm traffic in the Qujagan system and learned of a second incident at the very same prison. On a hunch, I order my Command Cruiser to return at full speed and we arrived only a half-solar day after whatever operation you carried out there."

Grayza looked at Berret and her lip curled up in a hateful sneer.  
"I must say, Shrike... you left quite an impressive body count behind you there"  
"Do not put me in a position where I have to add to it, Mele-On," the assassin responded coldly.  
Grayza narrowed her eyes at the threat. "Just as you've put me in a position where I will have to end your rampage though the Territories. You will pay dearly for betraying me"  
"You can try, Mele-On," Berret tonelessly replied.  
"And you may stop using my given name! You may address me as Commandant Grayza or Ma'am"  
Berret's only response to the reprimand was a slight upturning of his lips. The smile seemed to have less dark humor in it than usual.  
"This is all very enlightening and answers a few intriguing questions," broke in Scorpius, "But now for the moment, let us get back to the matters at hand"  
All assembled persons in the room agreed to continue with planning, though some did reluctantly. The discussion turned away from the Commandant and the Shrike, and returned to the matter of John Crichton and Aeryn Sun.  
Chiana only half listened to the conversation. Her attention remained on Berret and the events that had unfolded since Grayza and her guards had captured her while she waited in the hidden Transport Pod and then stormed into the meeting. She was honestly impressed and proud with her friend's performance; he had not overly injured or killed anyone despite the near violence of the situation. On that part she was quite happy, and began to have some hope for the ex-assassin again However the others hadn't noticed, but there was something odd in Berret's voice as he spoke to the Peacekeeper Commander, and the fact that the Shrike had addressed Grayza repeatedly with her given name didn't escape her either.  
The Nebari wasn't absolutely positive, but she thought she could hear a hint of unnatural regret in the Shrike's tone. The thought only left her baffled and she tried to tell herself she was mistaken, but the idea stuck firm in her mind. Her instincts were telling her there was something more than meets the eye there.  
She would have to wait and catch Berret alone to get to the truth - if she could.  
The Nebari knew she still was on very shaky ground with the assassin, but she knew she had to find out exactly what Berret's relationship to the Peacekeeper was. She just wished she could be sure if she wanted to know for the sake of the group as a whole... or for some deep personal reason of her own?

The meeting ended fairly well for the crewmates and Scorpius - but not so well as far as Grayza was concerned. After hearing the group's plans and Scorpius' agreement to assist, she objected venomously. There was no way she was going to let Scorpius near John Crichton - alive, dead, or deconstructed into a million little crystalline pieces.  
Lucky, Scorpius had managed to somehow discreetly contact Braca aboard his new Command Carrier.  
When the shouting Grayza burst from the workroom into the main warehouse, yelling for her men to arrest everyone inside the meeting, she found only Braca waiting to inform her that her detail had been taken into custody and transported to Scorpius' ship.  
Two more troopers appeared and escorted Braca and the cursing Grayza back to a waiting Marauder so that the Commandant could rejoin her men.  
Genuinely impressed that Scorpius had efficiently dealt with Grayza and had kept his word not to try and capture the crewmates, D'argo and Rygel stayed behind with the half-Scarran for a moment to work out some last fine details to their plans. The rest of the group left them to their planning. Outside the workshop, the warehouse was fully lit now. Some tech in Braca's crew obviously having repaired the damage Berret had done to the building's main lighting system. The fixtures the Shrike had destroyed in the earlier hunt had merely been night-cycle aisle lighting for any night patrols the warehouse might have employed. A few credits bribe from Rygel had insured that no night guards would be present for the meet.  
Outside the gathering, Chiana took the opportunity to question Berret.

"Will you tell me about Grayza?" she asked cautiously.  
"There is nothing more to tell," he said, "Events happened as she described. I committed all the acts she alleges"  
"I know now you're far from a saint... all of us are," the girl told him. "I'm not judging you for whatever you did to that PK tralk... or that you killed those soldiers in her Marauder crews"  
"You know I have done far worse," he replied as he made to turn away. There was no outward sign, but the young thief instinctively knew that Berret did not want to continue that particular discussion with her.  
Chiana shook her head and gently took his arm to keep him from walking away from her. For a change she was greatly pleased that Berret did not flinch away from her touch, even though she suspected the lack of reaction was only an indication of the Shrike's deep state of private thought at the moment.  
"I know I haven't done a good job of showing it lately, but I'm still your friend, 'Ret," the Nebari waif told him. "There's something more, I heard it in your voice." The Shrike only looked at her with unblinking eyes. Undeterred Chiana continued with her observation, "Its almost as if... you felt sorry for her in a way"  
To her wonder, she saw a quick hint of surprise pass over Berret's face. She'd guessed correctly after all!  
The Shrike twisted his lips into a small frown, his forehead furrowed in concentration as he attempted to arrange his thoughts. It was an expression that she'd noticed that Berret had come to wear often in the last few solar days as they meticulously planned the meeting with Scorpius.  
"Mele-On... Grayza, for the most part I believe means well in this matter. She seeks peace for the Peacekeeper and Sebacean people... despite the means she attempted to deploy by betraying certain of her allies," the assassin began.  
"Yeah, I'm sure the Luxans' are less than thrilled with her right now," Chiana put in.

"I believe you would be correct on that matter," Berret replied. "She is attempting to avoid a galactic war between the Peacekeepers and the Scarrans. Such a clash would be devastating to both sides... and most every other species caught in the middle of the conflict. However... she will not listen to reason. I tried several times during my time on her ship to convince her that the Scarrans, that any Scarran, could not be trusted. But she refused to believe me. By willingly betraying her allies, she only confirmed to the Scarrans that she and the Peacekeepers are dealing from a position of weakness. You may as well dump a pail of blood into the water before a school of Thrasher-fish and receive the same results.  
"She justified her actions by claiming the survival of the Sebacean race was all, and worth any duplicity to the Luxans or other allies. She could not understand why as a Sebacean myself, I could not accept that as truth. She failed to realize that the fact I am no longer Sebacean because of the Scarran Black Syndicate... is proof that they are treacherous as a entire species, just as I maintain." "Even so... you don't think she's only glory hunting on this? She really believes she can make a lasting peace and it's not some power trip? Or a way for her to get power for herself?" Chiana asked Berret briefly shook his head in the negative.  
"It is fact, that success with bringing peace would give her power of a sort within the Peacekeeper ranks. But her desire for a peaceful solution is real regardless, and blinds her to the facts that I presented her with. She thinks that my animosity to the Scarrans is simply only a result of my enslavement to the Black Syndicate, and that the Royal Imperium itself will honor a truce... as it is not by nature, a criminal organization"  
Chiana's dark eyebrows rose in near astonishment.  
"Oh? Is that it?" she asked as she slipped her arm all the way through Berret's and began to slowly walk down the hallway with him. "I'm amazed at just how frelling dumb someone in Grayza position can be"  
Berret nodded his head a single time.  
"She knows not what she truly deals with."

Chiana considered his words for a moment.  
"Just to play Hynerian's Advocate for a microt, are you sure about this? That the Imperium and the Syndicate are virtually the same as far as being able to trust them"  
"Yes"  
"And that's just not you being prejudice"  
Berret paused a moment in his walk to regard her with cold unfeeling eyes.  
"Do you really believe that a criminal organization as large as the Black Syndicate could in effect operate unhindered for nearly a thousand cycles within a military monarch society like the Imperium, without secret support from a group high in the royal hierarchy?" Chiana's beautiful mouth turned downward in a thoughtful frown of her own.  
"Now that you mention it... no, I don't," she said. "Something would have to be crooked there"  
"And you would be correct to believe so," Berret responded as he began to walk again.  
Chiana easily kept pace besides the tall ex-Enforcer. She idly became aware of the sound of metal hitting the floor stones in time with the tall man's footsteps. The fact that Berret's armored boots made any sound at all as they walked told Chiana that the topic had annoyed the Shrike to the point were he wasn't paying attention to the way he moved.  
Almost as if he were reading her mind at the moment, Berret caught himself and altered his step. The clicking of armored boot soles vanished and the Shrike moved as silently as always.

Chiana couldn't help but smile briefly to herself as she recalled a time just after the breakout and her rediscovered friend had joined them aboard Moya.  
She had still been blind then, but she had joined Berret in his new quarters where on a whim one evening she asked the Shrike if she could try on his Enforcer boots and armor. She swore she heard a tone of amusement in the ex-assassin voice as he gave her permission to indulge herself.  
She attempted to don the metal plates but found them too cumbersome with just the back and chest armor alone, and decided to just try the boots out. Chiana had to stuff several pair of rolled up socks into the footwear before they would come close to fitting her smaller feet. She hadn't realized just how heavy the shin and foot armor was either until she attempted walking in the Enforcer footwear.  
And no matter how hard she tried; she couldn't master the technique of walking silently in them.  
To her hypersensitive ears, her footsteps sounded like bars of steel stock tumbling down a stairwell.  
The memory of those early days brought a larger smile to her dark lips. It was little things such as this... and the fact that Berret was obviously perplexed by Grayza's failure to believe what he told her about the Scarrans that gave Chiana the optimism that her friend wasn't as soulless as she had believed him to be for awhile. If she could bring these moments out of him, if he could feel these things, no matter how small, there had to be hope for him some how.  
Berret's next comment made her forget where her thoughts were going.  
"There is one other aspect that neither the Scarran Imperium nor Peacekeeper Command has taken into consideration with pending war," he said darkly.  
"What's that?" Chiana asked interested, but with a sudden sinking feeling.  
"That a third fraction is working covertly to undermine peaceful negotiations from both sides"  
"You mean... someone's kinkoid enough to actually be working to start a huge war in the territories?" the Nebari girl exclaimed in surprise. "Yes"  
Chiana narrowed her eyes in near disbelief. "But who would be frelling crazy enough to want a all-out war between the Territories two biggest super powers? My people want control of everyone in the Territories but they'd use more devious means like the Contagion rather than start a war that would kill most everybody they wanted to rule... including themselves. The Hynerian Empire is in chaos and couldn't even think of starting something like that and survive it. Who does that leave"  
Berret looked at her levelly, waiting for the answer to dawn.  
The Nebari tilted her head in sudden understanding.  
"No!" she said, and a cold fist gripped her heart. "The Black Syndicate! But you practically claim that they are working along side the Imperium to betray the Peacekeepers in the negotiations"  
"I have no proof, but I do not doubt that the Syndicate is working with the Imperium to trick the Peacekeepers. I also have no doubt that the Syndicate will ultimately betray the Imperium at some point as well"  
"Why?" Chiana asked. "What makes you think something like that"  
Berret looked slightly away from her, as if he were in someway to blame for what the Syndicate was up to.  
"A war between the Scarran Imperium and the Peacekeepers will eventually drag all the other lesser powers into it whither they wanted to fight or not," the Shrike explained. "The Luxans, Sheyangs, the Hynerian Empire, and even Nebari Prime will have no choice but to chose a side and join in, and be destroyed in the end. Leaving the Syndicate when all is done... in control of everything." "Is that frelling possible?" Chiana asked with wide eyes.  
"It is more than possible," the Shrike replied with eyes hardening. "I have been thinking about events in the last few solar days, and about some of the assignments I was ordered to perform while an Enforcer under Syndicate control, along with what few other facts I can remember. I also asked Pilot to search Moya's data banks for other relevant information on historical events inside the Territories. I have since come to believe that the High Syndicate Houses have been planning and slowly working toward such a occurrence for the last twenty cycles... if not longer."

Chiana gave herself a few microts to digest the thought and then swallowed hard.  
"If you're right about this... we have to tell somebody!" she exclaimed.  
"Who?" Berret simply asked in return.  
The gray girl shook her head. "I don't know," she finally replied. "D'argo... Rygel... somebody, anybody... the Peacekeepers if we have to"  
"And who would believe us? We are outlaws," the Shrike supplied. "And your friends are almost as powerless to do anything as we are"  
Chiana began to move with the sharp motions of Nebari agitation. "We just can't stand by and let it all turn to dren," she said. "There has to be something, or we're all gonna die! You, me... Moya, John and Aeryn... Aeryn's baby. You know these people, you were part of the Syndicate... surely you must know something we can do to stop them"  
Berret shifted his weight slightly as if uncertain about something he was thinking about revealing to her. Chiana tilted her head at him, making it clear she was willing to listen to what he had to say, no matter what it was.  
"There is one option I have been considering of late," he finally said.  
"What"  
The tall Shrike squared his shoulders, and gazed at her with near emotionless eyes.  
"I must return to Arckatius's Syndicate House... and eradicate him, just as I had planned before I found you"  
The gray girl forcefully shook her head. "No! No frelling way!" she replied sternly while reaching out to grab his arm through his cloak. Surprisingly she located the limb on the first try and hung onto it with a grip born of near desperation. "That's nothing new and it's just an excuse for you to get your revenge against that scaly bastard. Its suicide! And I'm not going to let you do it. Find another way, get another idea"  
"Yes, I want revenge. I crave it in ways you cannot begin to understand," Berret replied. He took a half step toward her. She had to tip her head up to keep eye contact with him, and he gazed down into her eyes through the wild bangs of her snow-white hair. To an onlooker, it had to appear that the tall assassin was using his presence to intimidate the young girl, but the Nebari knew that was not the case. To that same onlooker, she knew that she gave off the air of indomitable will. Berret would not harm her no matter how unstable he became at times, anymore than she would willingly allow Berret to go off and be harmed. It was just the core nature of things between them.

"Yes, I do understand," Chiana countered in a whisper. "I want revenge for what happen to me after I left Moya. I want to make them pay for what they did to me in that jail. This time... nobody came to save me, and I live with that every frelling day of my life since then. I want them dead so bad I dream of it most nights" she hissed, letting him see the pain in her eyes. Just as suddenly they soften as she reached out with both arms to grasp his armored hands in hers. "But its not worth dying for," she continued. "Its not worth letting it eat away at my soul until there's nothing left. I go on, every day, looking forward, trying to put it all behind me now. It's not simple, but it gets a little easier each day." Her hands traveled upward along his arms as she spoke until they settled around his neck, once there she pulled his head down until their foreheads touched in a half-hug. She had always found comfort when Zhaan had embraced in that way; she was hoping she could convey the same sense of security to Berret. "Let it go, Retty," she begged quietly, "You're free now. Live your life the best you can... here with us"  
Berret closed his eyes for a moment as he awkwardly held her in turn. Aware that it wasn't truly the intimate connection with Chiana he had hope for at the beginning of his quest, he still allowed himself the brief moment to imagine this is how it might have been if events had unfolded differently.  
Before he could become too wrap up in the illusion of what might have been, he reluctantly straightened a few microts later and broke the embrace. He took a symbolic step back and the unemotional mask once more slid across his features.  
Chiana sighed and groaned in defeat; intuitively knowing she hadn't convinced him to see things her way. "It is no longer that uncomplicated as simple retribution," Berret told her quietly. "It has become a far larger matter than just my vengeance for my enslavement. I have come to realize that over the last several solar days"  
"I don't see how that is," she said to him. "The Black Syndicate is too large for one man, even a Shrike assassin, to take on all by himself. Think about what you're saying, Berret. Even if you get Arckatius and live through it, you can't possibly get them all. The next one will kill you, or the one after that. If you kill one or two leaders, eventually the others will all band together and come for you. It's hopeless! You can't win"  
"You're thinking on too large a scale," Berret responded. "I do not have to win... I only have to kill Arckatius. And it has to be soon"  
Chiana shook her head. "I still don't understand. How is killing one Scarran crime-lord going to stop their plan for total war? One Scarran out of what? Hundreds? Why would that stop any of the others"  
"What you don't understand is the Syndicate's structure," he explained. "It is not the fact that Arckatius is one of hundreds of Syndicate heads... it's the Syndicate House that he is the master of"  
"And what has that to do with anything"  
Berret actually looked like he was weary for just a few microts to Chiana, as if all his thoughts were weighing heavily on him and he had almost reached the end of his extraordinary endurance.  
"Arckatius's House is a High Syndicate House, one of only twelve such. Lower and Minor Houses all report or tribute to one of the Twelve. The head of each High House holds a place on a Commission that rules the organization, divides territories and profits, and dispenses whatever punishment is need to underlings that go astray of the Commission's policy. The lesser Houses each pay tribute to one of the Twelve, or in some case all of them "If one of the twelve leaders were to die or be killed suddenly, the Syndicate House would be in chaos as members struggle for control. In turn the Commission's hold on the Lower and Minor Houses would be deficient at best with the void of power in certain territories. In total disarray if one or more House leaders - High, Lower, or Minor - decided to take the opportunity to seize control of the left open regions and profits, in the process filling the position left by the fallen High House for themselves."

Chiana expressive eyes grew round as she began to process what her friend was telling her.  
"They'd tear themselves apart in a power struggle to grab up turf and money," she said. "They'd be too busy fighting among themselves to go ahead with their plan to take over by war"  
The Shrike nodded. "That is what I think will happen"  
"But you're not exactly sure," she asked.  
"No," he had to admit. The girl ran a forefinger over her chin several times in thought.  
"This political dren give me a headache," she finally commented. "I think to be on the safe side, we should run this pass Frog-face and see what he thinks. He's the one with the devious little politician mind. If anyone can see all the sides to this, its Rygel"  
Berret's lips twisted into a grimace. "I do not see why we need to bother with the Hynerian judgment. As I said, Arckatius has to die soon if we are to stop them. The longer we delay, the closer they are to achieving their goal"  
Chiana turned to look at him straight on. "No... we take this to Rygel and let him chew it over"  
"Even if we did, it changes nothing. I still have to go and find a way to get within striking reach of Arckatius before too long. Finding my way clear to him will take time and planning"  
"Why does it have to be Arckatius?" Chiana asked. "Why not one of the other Twelve"  
"Because I have no knowledge of the other eleven or their Houses. It has to be Arckatius. I have the best chance of getting to him"  
"That's awful convenient for you and your revenge," she bit back.  
"Matters are what they are," the ex-Enforcer replied. "Debating the facts will not change anything and only waste time."

It was Chiana's turn to frown. "Damn, I don't like the way this is going one frelling bit"  
"I did not create the situation," Berret said tonelessly as he turned to continue the walk back to the hidden Transport Pod.  
"I wasn't blaming you," Chiana tossed in as she hurried to keep pace with the tall Shrike. "It use to be, we just ran around hiding from everybody with a gun, and once in awhile stealing something... and I liked it that way. Now it seems every time I wake up this last cycle, we're saving the Territories. I hate this dren, it's not a smart way to live to a ripe old age"  
"Perhaps its not some's fate to die of old age," the assassin muttered.  
"Well... if you gotta go out... go out with a big bang, I always say," the Nebari girl said jokingly.  
"You are not going with me," Berret replied dryly.  
Chiana narrowed her dark eyes and gazed up at her friend, trying to determine if he were joining in with her half-hearted attempt to lighten the mood or if he had missed the effort at banter. The look on Berret's face made her decide that it was neither and that the Shrike was being his usual obstinate self. "We haven't decided you're going yet either," she countered, showing she could be just as stubborn.  
"That decision is not yours to approve," Berret said with a hint of annoyance. "It is mine and mine alone to make. I do not need permission from any of you"  
"Be reasonable..." she began. "There is no reasonable!" Berret cut her off. "There is just what is... and what has too be. I have done all you asked of me. I can no longer help you restore your friends; you have all you need to pursue that end. Its time... I must go and do what I need to do"  
"To die? Out there, alone?" she asked, knowing she had all but lost with trying to talk sense into her friend.  
"That does not matter," the ex-Enforcer responded.  
"It does matter, Berret," Chiana countered. "There's no need for you to go off and do this. No one's asking you to play hero!"

Surprisingly, Berret came to a standstill and issued a short bark of a laugh. Chiana blinked, stunned by the strange outburst.  
"Hero?" Berret queried with an odd trace of that unhinged tone creeping into his voice. "You think by doing this, I want to be a hero"  
Chiana crossed her arms defensively. "Isn't that part of the reason you're doing this? To get revenge and be the big hero"  
The full laughter that came from Berret then held no humor at all, in fact the near madness in it sent a shudder up and down the Nebari's flexible spine. Chiana could think of nothing to say, so she waited to see what he would do next.  
"Hero," Berret repeated, the twisted smile that suddenly formed on his face Chiana thought was better fit for someone who was truly kinkoid in the worse way. For the first time she began to feel afraid of the Shrike. The grin slipped away a microt later as if it had never been there, but the new edge of madness never left his eyes. "Don't you see yet?" he asked, still not quite in a normal tone for him. "That's why I have to go. Hero's care, they care about all matter of pathetic and useless things. Care about righting wrongs, care about preventing war. I don't care about preventing war... I don't care about wrongs"  
The maniac grin returned with double the intensity as he stepped closer to her. Chiana's blood ran cold and she found she was frozen to that very spot. Berret brought his gaze down level with hers as he leaned over, his eyes glinted silver then with the cast of a predator toying with its prey. He bent forward closer and his voice turned to a bare cold whisper.  
"I just... want... to... kill something"  
The assassin's smile turned into something else that left Chiana feeling sick to her stomach. The reaction seemed to please him in some way and the Shrike chuckled maliciously to himself as he abruptly turned from her and continued on his way alone. As soon as she was away from him, Chiana felt herself shiver involuntarily again.  
She watched after him, knowing that somewhere in the conversation something dark and malevolent had slipped in... almost as if an impious ghoul had taken her friend over and she hadn't been talking to her Berret anymore. 


	14. Chapter 13

When Berret came back to himself, he was more then half way back to the Transport Pod that had brought the group to their clandestine meeting. The effort to regain control of the specter that lived within him left him so mentally weakened that he actually staggered several steps as a result.

As the world around him snapped back into prospective, he whirled and slammed a fist with blazing frustration into a metal sign listing the locations of various buildings within the warehouse district.

The sign gave way to the abuse with a metallic protest, a knuckle in his hand broke from the impact despite the armor covering it, but the pain helped clear away the last dregs of the sadistic voice in his mind.

He cursed venomously as the injury began its now familiar microbe-driven burn. The oaths were not for the pain in his hand, but for the fact that he'd so easily lost control in front of Chiana.

The ghost had slipped right in and taken over before he realized it, leaving him to helplessly watch while it toyed ghoulishly with the Nebari girl, reveling in her growing fear of him.

It was like viewing a holo-vid that couldn't be turned off.

It was becoming worse, and he wasn't sure if now he could hold off the insane part of himself much longer. The thing left inside him from the control collar had proven that it was finding ways around whatever walls he attempted to cage it behind. It was just a matter of time before not even the compromise he'd made with it for Arckatius' blood would hold it in check. There would be no need for the bargain if it learned to be free at will.

The pain in his hand ceased as the hyperactive microbes finished mending the bones. He ignored the spike of hunger that hit him as a result of the work. He paused a moment to consider his current situation. The crew planned to retreat with Scorpius to a Zeta-class Nebula to hide in its radio distortion cloud, undetectable by most scans, while the Peacekeeper scientist fathomed the machine's reconstruction process.

The Nebula also happened to be with a few solar days cruising time from the boarder's of the Scarran Imperium. He had in turned planned to remain with the Leviathan that long and jump off there to finish his long over-due business with the Syndicate.

Now his condition was complicating events further.

The Shrike racked his brain for a resolution, but nothing presented itself for serious consideration for a few moments. Then as near desperation hit him, he remembered something that just might have been an option he overlooked in his exasperation.

He dug through a belt pouch and found what he was looking for. Taking out the little homemade pills the mad woman aboard Moya had given him several days earlier, he scrutinize them as they lay in his open palm.

It was near lunacy to even consider taking them he knew. He had heard enough stories aboard ship of the old fenik's potions and how often they did not work, or worked wrongly.

However, there were also a few occasions where they worked just as described without problem.

His alternatives were very limited at that point he decided. If anything at least, the old woman's concoction should give the specter trying to take control of him something else to contend with, while buying him some time… and that was a sound tactic to employ in his situation.

And probably the most viable one the assassin had left to him.

Without further thought he pop the pills into his mouth and swallowed, grimacing slightly at the horrific taste they left behind them.

He waited a few more microns, but nothing noticeable happened. He frowned to himself, not sure if he should be relieved or disappointed at the lack of results. Another micron later with still no effects, he decided the old woman's drugs did nothing but leave a foul taste on his tongue.

He began walking toward the ship once more, attempting to try and come up with another solution. He had taken only several steps when he began to feel strange… as if his entire body belonged to someone else.

He came to an unsteady stop and his view of the street around him shifted abruptly. He found he had to reach out and grab onto parked ground car to keep from falling over as his balance gave out to a wave of dizziness.

He was beginning to consider a vast number of painful deeds he would work upon Noranti when he returned to Moya when his vision suddenly turned crystal clear.

He managed to straighten up again, just a bare microt of two before every drop of his blood turned to fire!

The agony hit him so fast that he spun off balance once more, and slammed full forced into a building.

Just as the world around him went dark, he heard a strangled howl and knew it had come from him. That cry of pain was nothing compared to the counter-part screaming that was going on somewhere inside his mind.

The Enforcer awoke some unknown time later and managed to climb to his shaky feet somehow.

His time in the dark had been filled with collage of visions, mostly of blood and death, murder of both the innocent and the guilty. Also mixed in were flashes of other places and people he did not know… or remember.

He staggered a few steps and then abruptly bent to empty his stomach out on the street. Afterwards, he shivered and found himself in a drenching cold sweat that made the ballistic suit under his armor feel clammy and unpleasant.

He took a few deep breaths to steady himself and found he could continue to walk again, though with somewhat less than his usual sure-footedness. He pulled the hood of his cloak up as far as it would go over his head; he did not want, nor was it wise, for the others to see him in this condition he knew. Odd pieces of conversations and unfamiliar voices seemed to echo in his ears, accompanying him on his travel.

Surprisingly he made it back to the Transport Pod without another severe episode, only to find the rest of the group already waiting for him.

"About frelling time!" D'argo snarled at him as he moved passed the big Luxan.

Berret curled his cloak more tightly around him and didn't reply. The warrior growled a curse at his back thinking the Shrike was simply being his annoying self.

Without a word to anyone, he found a seat in the rear of the shuttle and dropped into it, sinking even deeper into his midnight shroud and hood. The Shrike could sense Chiana in the compartment with him, and knew her attention was focused upon him. He was glad that the bulk of the cloak hid his shaking body and the deep hood covered his ashen face from the Nebari's view.

From the pilot's seat, D'argo guided the Pod back to their Leviathan home. Rygel in the co-pilot's chair turned and made conversation with Chiana about the success of their gambit to secure Scorpius's help. The conversation distracted the gray girl from the Enforcer, much to his relief.

Gone were any thoughts of eradicating Noranti for the moment. Berret simply just wanted to get back to the ship where he could lock himself inside his quarters to sleep off the effects of whatever the old witch had poisoned him with.

Let the others prepare for the arrival of the half-breed and his equipment. He was done with any part of the crew's problem with restoring their friends. Once the toxins had left his system, and then perhaps he would find time to have a private discussion with the mad old women about her potions before he left the ship.

He settled into his private misery and after a few microns of quite reflection, realized that the presence in his mind was strangely absent.

The dead were everywhere he looked, all around him… pressing in with silent and bloodless features. Staring accusingly with lifeless gazes at him. Each face he met, he was somehow able to put a name and reason for their death at his hands too. The children were the worse.

Blood in countless shades covered everything he touched. The life-giving fluid turned the very ground beneath his boots to mud. Here the ghost in his mind lived; its voice multiplied a hundred times filled the still air from every direction. It screeched its glory, and bid him to slaughter his silent victims all over again for its twisted pleasure. In this place of madness, not even the dead were safe.

He turned to look for an escape, but the countless corpses allowed none. The Scarran demon in his mind urged him to kill again, to take what little his victims had in this land of death from them as well.

"No," he murmured and backed away from the animated bodies in front of him as several took a few lumbering steps toward him… as if inviting him to began the slaughter anew.

He raised his hands in defense to ward them off, only to find his Shrike Enforcer blades there as well, only now instead of emanating from his armored braces, the blades grew from the very backs of his hands themselves, as if they were now a part of him.

A new wordless cry escaped him at the obscene sight. In panic, he turned to bolt, only to be brought face-to-face with a new vision of horror.

Chiana now blocked his way, so close that he was forced to take a step back or fall over the girl. The Nebari looked up at him with a quizzical tilt of her head. It was then he realized that her normally dark eyes were clouded over with the pale fog of death. Her skin was the shade of cold marble stone without the bluish tint of life to it. The sweet lips that use to be shiny black satin were now gray and drained of color.

Horrible slash wounds violated her tiny body and the front of her clothing was caked with the blue-black of dried Nebari blood.

He swallowed hard as she took a single step toward him, he wanted to back away again but the mud at his feet now seemed hard as quickcrete around the soles of his feet. She tilted her head the other way and Berret heard brittle bone and desiccated flesh creak from the girl.

"Why?" Chiana asked in a long drawn out whisper from the tomb.

Shrike457 bolted upright, tangled in sweat soaked sheets.

He threw the upper half of his body over the side of his bed just as his stomach surge upwards again. This time only a few dribbles of whatever was left inside him hit the deck by his sleeping platform. His stomach continued its seizures even though it was now more than empty of anything. He found the dry heaves to be far worse than actually throwing up.

Within a few microts, much of the illness passed for the moment. A DRD appeared out from somewhere under the bed and began to clean up the mess he had left, chirping in what seemed to be electronic annoyance. Berret consider that the drone just may be doing just that… as it was the forth time he could recall being sick since arriving at his quarters, and except for his recent episode the floor looked clean otherwise.

He freed himself from his bedding and managed to get into a sitting position on his sleeping platform.

A trail of armor plate led from his locked doorway to his bed along the deck. His cloak somehow ended up in the middle of the room; also dump unceremoniously on the floor. His black ballistic suit was nowhere to be seen and it took a few moments for Berret to remember shoving the piece of clothing into the small cleansing unit in his quarters before collapsing on his bed wearing nothing but his under-garments.

His under clothing held the sour smell of his drug induced sweat, so he stripped them off as well and staggered to his shower stall. His head pounded with a deep ache, so he spent as little time as possible under the stream of water. Still, he scrubbed at himself as if still able to feel the blood from his nightmare coating his body.

He finished bathing and stepped out of the stall, still on shaky legs, but managed not to slip on the tiled floor of the lavatory. He dried himself and spent a moment gazing at his haggard features in the reflecting surface mounted above his sink. In the foggy glass-like surface he saw dark rings under his eyes.

"So this is what guilt felt like?" he asked himself silently. He reached up and wiped at the misted mirror to clear it. Over one shoulder, the patch he revealed held a imagine of Chiana standing behind him.

A bloodless Chiana with a viciously slashed body.

He snarled wordlessly and whirled to confront the apparition.

No one stood behind him; he was alone in the washroom.

The world around him tilted slightly and become a touch unfocused. Knowing Noranti's potion was wrecking its havoc with him once more, he blundered back into the main chamber. The Shrike rifled through the small accumulation of clothing he had acquired in his short stay aboard the Leviathan until he found new under-garments and a change of PK issue off-duty wear.

He had just donned the leather-like trousers and was reaching for a shirt when he heard the voice behind him.

"Jared-san…?"

Again he spun to face whatever had gotten behind, only to find a stranger there. The woman was little taller than Chiana but with more Sebacean-like skin tone. Her hair was straight, long, and as black as his cloak.

Her eyes were the strangest feature about her; they were oddly angled. She was dressed similar to what he had seen in the primitive holo-viewer in the quarters of the one called Crichton.

"Who are you?" the Shrike demanded.

The woman merely looked at him for a moment.

"You left. Why did you not return to me?" she asked instead. "Did I do something to make you angry?"

Suddenly he knew where he had seen her before. He had disjoined flashes of this female in the nightmares he'd had in the last few arns.

"I waited," she continued. The woman seemed undefined in a way that made her look less than real… like a hologram. Berret then knew his visitor was another trick his misfiring mind was playing on him.

"I waited for you," she told him again. "But you never came home again. We all waited for you…"

Something about the girl reached him in a strange way, he felt himself slipping into the illusion.

"I tried," he found himself saying to the phantom. "But they took me… wouldn't let me go… I was too far away, I couldn't get back…" The Enforcer took several steps toward the figure as he spoke.

He had no idea why he would say such a thing, or what exactly he meant by it. The words came without thought, and he expressed them involuntarily. He felt himself strongly drawn to the woman; instinct telling him there was some sort of clue for him in who she was. A few henta away from her, he reached forward.

The girl's strange eyes wielded with tears.

"I waited…" she said desolately.

And then she faded away before his fingers could touch her.

Eyes wide in sudden shock, he lowered his hand. A word that was both foreign and familiar at the same time came unbidden to his lips.

"Yuriko."

There was something sad for him in what he suddenly knew was a name, and a deep cold pain of loss that twisted cruelly in his guts.

The Shrike left his assigned quarters in a hurry, somehow hoping that leaving them behind might stop the hallucinations. Instead he only ran into more of them in the dark corners of the Leviathan's corridors.

Mangles victims silently watched him at hall junctures; strangers in that same odd clothing he'd seen in the primitive viewer, called him by the same name the woman in his quarters had, as they approached him and demanded different things of him. Each phantom brought its own intense reaction of regret, betrayal, or sadness of loss to him.

The feelings came in rapid secession, almost too fast for him to process, or understand why he was having them with each of the visions.

"Leave me alone," he muttered at each as he turned away, only to be confronted by another ghost.

Abruptly and older Sebacean-looking woman appeared in the center of the corridor before him. He had turned his head one way as a wordless corpse of a child regarded him from along side one bulkhead support, and when he turned back again the woman was suddenly there in front of him.

She gazed at him with great sadness in her eyes.

"They wouldn't tell us anything," the new woman announced.

Berret backed up a step from the vision, but the woman took a step forward to again close the distance between them.

"I was frantic… where did you go, son?" she continued. "You left that sweet girl waiting… without a word. How could you not let me know where you were? If you were okay?"

The assassin took several more steps back away from the woman.

"I… don't… know you," he stammered out.

The older woman ignored his reply.

"What is it you have done here?" she then asked. "What have you become?"

"What they wanted," Berret found himself answering. "I'm what they made me."

He shook his head, knowing by replying he was slipping further into the illusion. But he couldn't stop it.

"Leave… me… alone," he whispered.

"Jared," the woman pleaded, "Jared, why?"

"Leave me alone!" Berret screamed as he turned and ran in the opposite direction.

Berret bite back another despondent scream when he finally stopped running, and slammed a fist against a bulkhead support. His Syndicate recollections had sometimes been vivid, usually during his periods of sleep. But this was different somehow; there was something extraordinary with this experience with these living ghosts. The images still flashing through in his mind blurred from one to the next in a constant landscape of bloody memories. And he felt new building grief for each one.

The Syndicate specter in his mind gave a counterpoint shriek of delight at the gory mayhem his past was showing him.

He struck the same place on the Leviathan's metallic walls leaving a growing dent. A DRD suddenly appeared from a maintenance duct and chirped a reprimand at him as it examined the damage he wroth. Before the device could react, the Shrike seized it and smashed it against the same corridor support he's abused moments before. The DRD shattered into multiple pieces and the sensor lights on its stalks blinked out. Berret let the dead drone clatter to the floor just as Pilot shimmered into being on the nearest clamshell.

"There was no need to destroy the DRD, Shrike Berret," the helmsman began crossly, "If you require aid for your distress, I will summons the others…"

"LEAVE ME ALONE!" Berret roared, cutting Pilot off. In the hologram, Pilot's big expressive eyes shot open roundly in surprise just as the Shrike reached up with both hands and tore the clamshell from its wall mounting just as well. "Stop… spying on me," he continued to rage.

Just then the microbes rewarded him with a sharp burst of pain, sending him to his knees in the middle of the hallway. Berret clutched at his midsection and rode out the wave of pain and sudden nausea. Abrupt mental pictures of more dead children gave the ex-Enforcer another bout of dry heaves.

"I… will… kill… that old woman," he gasped out as he automatically wiped at his mouth after he'd finished being sick.

"An excellent idea," said a jocular and devious voice from behind him. "But I believe that will only let the others know… just how unstable you truly are."

Berret shambled to his feet, immediately aware of how slow he was moving, and how sluggish his reactions had become. Turning, he found Scorpius leaning up against the corridor bulkhead, regarding him with both arms crossed nonchalantly across his armored chest. The ex-assassin could only gaze at him in turn through wild bangs of sweat-soaked disheveled hair, knowing that the half-breed had caught him at a grave disadvantage.

Scorpius allowed himself a lopsided toothy smile as he accessed the Shrike rapidly decaying condition. He levered himself casually off the wall and made a point of stepping widely around the remains of the ruined DRD.

"I image Pilot will not be happy with you over the fate of his repair drone," the half-Scarran drawled.

"What do you want?" Berret hissed as with as much threat as he was able to muster at the moment.

The attempt failed and only seemed to amuse Scorpius all the more.

"Me? Not a thing… at least, not from you," the Peacekeeper commander told the ailing Shrike. "I was simply taking a stroll to stretch my legs… as Sikozu is sleeping in our quarters. When my curiosity was aroused by the clamor you were making." He stepped closer to Berret and grinned widely. "I cannot help but notice you are in a very bad way, Shrike." The Scarran half-breed said the name as if he found the title humorous.

"Not bad enough that I still couldn't kill you," Berret spat in return.

"Really?" Scorpius replied. "That hypothesis would be interesting to explore."

Scorpius let all his teeth show as he took one more step closer. Berret responded by unleashing a punch to the Peacekeeper's jaw. The black clad Scarran's head rocked back slightly, but recovered almost immediately – the grin still in place. Berret knew then without a doubt that he was in dire straits, the blow had nowhere near the power it should have. Even in his present condition the augmentation should have kicked in and the punch taken Scorpius' head off as he had intended. Instead, suddenly his entire body felt drained and weak.

The microbe enhancement had finally betrayed him. Not giving up, Berret threw a second insubstantial punch at his enemy's face.

Scorpius looked almost bored as he casually stopped Berret's fist in mid-flight almost half way to its target.

"That will be enough of that," the Scarran admonished, and then dropping the stalled fist, he seized Berret by the throat and slammed the Shrike into the bulkhead behind him. Scorpius applied upward pressure and Berret's feet left the deck.

"Go… ahead," Berret rasped out, "Kill me."

"Kill you?" Scorpius chuckled. "My good Shrike… why would I wish to do that? You are such an interesting subject. I could not, in the best interest of science, give up the chance to observe you further."

Saying that, Scorpius released his hold and let Berret fall to the deck. The ex-assassin barely had enough strength left to catch himself before he collapsed to the ground. His knees weak, Berret managed to just stay on his feet by leaning most of his weight up against the bulkhead behind him.

"What… do… you mean," the ex-Enforcer asked as he rubbed at his throat. "Why do you want to watch me, you scaly bastard?"

The half-breed gazed at him with some glee. "You really don't know, do you?"

Berret shook his head in answer.

Scorpius gave him another teasing grin as if he were debating with himself on revealing the information.

"The experimental microbes you are augmented with," he finally said.

"What about them?"

"They are Peacekeeper in origin," Scorpius supplied, "Most of the Sebacean test subjects died immediately or went mad shortly after being exposed… a rare few lasted a cycle or two before surrendering to madness, followed by death. The project was rather a large disappointment to Peacekeeper Command."

Berret allowed himself a dry chuckle. "In case you haven't noticed, half-breed…" he let the sentence hang.

"Oh yes, you are dying… and slipping into madness," Scorpius agreed. "There is no doubt about that."

"Then what is so frelling special?" the Shrike asked with increasing irritation.

Scorpius' smile grew even more wicked, as if he relished the knowledge he held over the ex-assassin.

"Do you know what all those inane icons on your armor mean?" he asked Berret.

"No… why should I care?"

"Because certain ones indicate the length of service to your Syndicate House… if you knew which ones to look at," Scorpius revealed. " A rather ridiculous custom, but one the Black Syndicate seems to enjoy following for some reason. Would you care to know how long?"

Berret looked as if he'd rather die than ask the half-breed for help uncovering information from his past. Still, the deep need outweighed his disgust at having to ask the abomination before him.

"How long," he finally rasped out after what seemed an eternity to him.

Scorpius' eyes held a hint of victory at that moment.

"Over ten cycles," he answered.

Berret felt as if a Transport Pod had hit him.

"Ten cycles," he numbly repeated. Ten long cycles of cold-blooded murder and death… and slavery to a near insane Scarran master. How many atrocities had he committed in that time? The voice in his head gave a low laugh that send a spur of pain through Berret's brain, followed by numerous conflicting totals for victims. Berret turned inward for a few microts to combat the specter, only to have it taunt him with the knowledge that the body count may be endless.

The ex-Enforcer must have been muttering to himself as he fought with the ghost inside. When he came back to his surroundings, he found the half-Scarran gazing at him with a new look of curiosity on his face. Before Berret could react, Scorpius took a step forward and closed the distance between them once again.

"What is going on in there, Shrike?" he asked inquisitively as he seized Berret's face by the jaw to hold him still. The Shrike ineffectively tried to break free and bat the Scarran's hand away, but Scorpius absently deflected his attempts with ease as he tilted Berret's head back and forth while examining him.

"You seem to be suffering from a unique form of dementia I have never seen before with the prior microbe enhancement test subjects."

"Let… me… go, mother… freller," Berret sputtered as he tried to twist free again.

Scorpius ignored his struggles and continued his inspection, turning his head further to one side again; the Peacekeeper scientist caught a glimpse of the scars left on Berret's throat from the control collar.

"Ah," exclaimed Scorpius with a deep hint of satisfaction. "I had not considered this before. The Syndicate had a control collar on you, did they not? Judging by the scars on your neck and their placement… I would deduce that it was a neural synapses modulator. Most likely a Mark Four – Zev-dac Shield… or a Pygma Delion Ceyfer with onboard computer mainframe for recording and retrieving data on your missions. I have heard that the higher Syndicate Houses favored the latter for their assassin slaves."

"Makva cUuz J'cot!" Berret swore through grit teeth.

Scorpius only smiled at the assassin. "You're grasp of high Scarran is impressive, Shrike," he said. "But my mother was Sebacean, so I'm afraid what you are suggesting would not be physically possible."

Frustrated, the Enforcer took another swing at the Peacekeeper scientist, just as easily as the first time, Scorpius knocked the blow aside.

"Really now, that is getting annoying," the half-breed tisked as he lifted the Shrike from the deck again in punishment. "If you cease your futile struggling, I would be able to complete my examination much quicker. I only wish to satisfy my curiosity about you."

"Then you should let him go before your curiosity kills you," said a female voice from behind the PK scientist.

Berret turned his eyes in that direction to find Chiana, the living Chiana, standing behind Scorpius with her small silver palm pistol pointed at the side of his head.

"Ah! Dear Chiana…" Scorpius said while not turning, or releasing the Shrike. "I had wondered when you would arrive. Are you not as curious about your new comrade as I am?"

"I like my men with some mystery," the Nebari quipped. "Now put him down," she ordered with a hint of danger in her tone.

Scorpius turned slightly in her direction and gave the girl a cold knowing smile.

"Child, in some certain circumstances, mystery might not be a wise thrill."

"Well, grising off a Nebari thief with a loaded pulse pistol pointed right at your new shiny cooling system isn't too wise either, is it old man?"

The half-Scarran gave a brief snort. "We both know you would not shoot me. You still need me if you want to see John and Aeryn Sun again. I cannot be of assistance with a defunct cooling system. So please desist with your idle threats."

"Oh! You're right about that," Chiana said almost pleasantly, and then lowered her pistol until it was pointed at Scorpius's nether-regions. "Then what do you think a couple of point-blank pulse bolts would do to your mivonks, even through armor. Do you think it'll feel good? I know a certain orange-haired tralk who would be very disappointed in your quarters later tonight."

Scorpius heaved an annoyed sigh. "Very well, your crude point is taken."

With that he released his hold and let the now sagging Berret drop to the deck.

"I knew you'd be reasonable… if I found the right incentive," the gray girl told him. "Now move away from him."

Scorpius took the few demanded steps away from the Shrike. "It was more the bother it was becoming than your threats," the scientist countered as Chiana went to Berret's side.

"Whatever, eema-face," she replied. "Are you okay," she asked the assassin as she tried to help him prop himself up.

"He is far from 'okay'," Scorpius put in before the other could respond.

"Shut up! I wasn't asking you," Chiana snapped.

The Peacekeeper officer merely chuckled. He took another few microts to survey the scene and than muttered, "Interesting."

"What? That I just didn't shoot you in the privates?" the girl asked with some annoyance. "I probably would have missed a target that small, even so close-up."

"No," Scorpius replied, matter-of-factly ignoring the jab. "I have just observed something… intriguing. Would the two of you care to know what it is?"

Chiana shot him a nasty look. "Will you go the frell away if we let you tell us?" she replied sarcastically. She was still attempting to bring Berret out of the slight stupor he seemed to be in, thinking Scorpius's hold on his throat had cut off his air flow slightly, and he need a moment to recover.

"Perhaps…" the half-breed told her. "You are aware that being half Scarran, that I posses their ability to not only see heat signatures, but reactions in body chemistry as well?"

"How lovely for you," Chiana said snidely. "I'll remember to send you a congratulatory card on your next birthing day."

"No need," he said with a dismissing wave of one gauntleted hand. "Without his cloak and armor, the Shrike has a very unique signature. It was what told me about his microbe augmentation from the beginning. Though there are some odd background fluxes I have never seen before. Unfortunately, there is also something foreign running through his system at this moment that is making the readings even more chaotic."

"Maybe it was the company he was keeping before I got here," the Nebari retorted.

"Charming, as always," Scorpius said at her quip. "Which brings me to my next interesting observation. Certain signatures and functions involuntarily spiked for a brief instant when he heard your voice. The very same reactions occurred within you when you speak to him."

Chiana narrowed her eyes dangerously at his statement.

"What the frell are you getting at?" she growled out.

Scorpius's smile grew more wicked with cruel delight. "I think you already know," he taunted as he hunkered down lower to her level. "Here you kneel with his hand clenched in yours. Would you like to know what both your body chemistries are saying now? If I were fully Sebacean… I'm sure it would be quite touching by now."

"SHUT THE FRELL UP!" Chiana shouted, her free hand involuntarily groping for her pistol again.

The scientist grinned again and ignored the threat.

"You needn't worry on his account," he said while pointing a finger at Berret. "He is… elsewhere at the moment. Whatever he indigested has occupied his mind and I very much doubt he has heard a word of our discussion at this point."

"What did he take? What did you give him, you bastard," she near snarled at him.

"I?" Scorpius said innocently, "Nothing, nor do I know what it was. I would wager the old woman would know if anyone does."

"Fenik!" the gray girl spat at the black-clad Peacekeeper. She turned back to the Shrike and saw that his eyes now held a far-away glassy look in them. " 'Ret?" she asked gently. "Come on, snap out of it."

"Was it some sort of poison?" she asked next.

"Doubtful," the scientist supplied. "His vital signs are still strong. Oddly his more aggressive signatures have decreased. He knows you're here… and you seem to bring a strangely calming result to him. Most fascinating… as only a very short time ago he wanted to rip me apart. Fortunately for me… he was in no condition to fulfill his desires at the moment."

Chiana turned to look at him. "He still might get the chance to when he's out of this. So don't go spreading your dren around about what you think you see between us, froth-mouth."

Scorpius only beamed wider, showing his sharp teeth.

"I understand. You are concerned about Ka'D'Argo discovering the hidden feelings you have for each other…"

"There are no hidden feelings!" Chiana cut him off with a bark.

"Of course…" Scorpius replied with mock sincerity. "As you say, little Nebari." He rose up from the crouched position he had taken and took a few steps down the corridor away from the pair. "It won't matter for very long anyway," he threw over one shoulder at her.

Chiana's head snapped around at the comment. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

The scientist halted and half-turned back toward her.

"I mean… he is dying, little Nebari. What he is, is killing him."

"You're lying!" Chiana snapped.

Scorpius held up both hands innocently. "For what purpose?" he countered with a look as close to sincere as he ever wore. "You have seen the signs for yourself. The augmentation is breaking his mind and the microbes themselves are burning him out. If you cared at all for him… you might consider ending his torment as a mercy." He locked narrowed eyes with her. "Before at the end, when he becomes too dangerous to you and your friends."

Saying that, the scientist turned on his boot heel and strode away, already dismissing the couple he'd left behind from his thoughts. The Nebari looked back at the near comatose man with her. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead and face. She absently brushed a few strands of hair away from his unseeing eyes.

"Oh Retty… what are we going to do?" she whispered helplessly.

It was then she'd noticed that Berret was muttering something barely audible under his breath. She leaned down closer to better hear what it was, until finally she could make it out.

"…I'm sorry…"

He was repeating those two words over and over. She straightened back up, knowing he wasn't speaking to her, but she gently padded his cheek anyway. Hoping the gesture would give them both a hint of comfort somehow.

"Yeah… me too," she add in the same low murmur as he.


	15. Chapter 14

Chiana head back down to the maintenance bay where the deconstruction device had been set up. It had been slightly difficult, but she had managed to get Berret safely back to his quarters with the help of Pilot and a few DRDs without the others finding out about what had happened to him. Now if Scorpius would only keep his big froth mouth shut about what he witnessed… but the girl didn't hold out much hope of that happening. Scorpius would cache what he knew, storing it away like priceless artwork. Then use the information to his advantage in a heartbeat, if it would benefit him or his desires in some way.

Dargo in particular would not be pleased if he became aware of the extent of the situation with Berret. The gray girl hated going behind her Luxan lover's back, it reminded her too much of what had happened with Jothee. As strong as the warrior was, the slowly growing trust between them was still fragile… the tiniest cause could break it she well knew.

Still, Chiana also knew she didn't have much choice. She wanted to find a way to help Berret, and she needed to find some way to buy herself time to think.

However, she hadn't a clue as to what she could possibly do to solve this problem.

Once safely inside his room, the ailing Shrike seemed to have slipped further into a psychological stupor, possibly even heading toward a full mental collapse. She had decided he needed to be forced to sleep and dosed him up with a derivative of Zhaan's sleep-mist. Well aware of his hyped-up metabolism, and just to be on the safe side, she doubled the normal prescribed amount to keep him down for a few arns while she tried to figure out what to do with the ex-Enforcer.

For something like the hundred time that solar day, the Nebari found herself wishing that the wise Delvian was still around. She knew that she could more than use the priestess's guidance about now. Instead all they had now was Wrinkles.

Reminded of the mad old woman, she made a mental note to track Noranti down and find out if she knew anything about the unknown substance Scorpius had commented on that Berret might have taken… or been slipped knowing that crazy old trill-bat. Berret had been none too gentle with the old woman on their first encounter, and Chiana wouldn't put it pass Noranti to dole out a little payback if given the opportunity.

Beside Berret's grave condition, she kept turning over their brief discussion in the warehouse. If the Shrike was right, the Black Syndicate was working against both sides of the coming conflict for it's own ends. She felt she had to tell someone, to let them take this immense burden from her shoulders. She was much too young of a narl to have knowledge of something this serious solely in her hands.

As soon as she was able, she decided, she would approach Rygel with what she knew. If anyone could understand the far-reaching implications and know what to do about them, it would be the Hynerian royal. She would just have to pick the proper time to speak with him, as anything to do with Berret wouldn't sit well with Rygel at the current moment.

The young Nebari sighed heavily and also placed that task on her growing mental list of 'things to do'.

The gray girl absently groaned to herself and rubbed at the side of her head with one gloved hand. _"Why did things have to be so complicated?"_ she asked herself. She shouldn't have the yoke of interstellar war on her mind. She had enough trouble just keeping her own life running relatively smoothly. Juggling her renewed relationship with D'argo was a full time job in itself – without the having been blind part.

Now this thing with Berret, and she knew she wasn't thinking about his illness at that instant – knowing full well she meant her mixed feelings for him, whatever they were… was only mudding up the caloric pool that much more.

"I need a frelling vacation," she murmured out loud to herself.

"What was that, Chiana?" asked a jubilant voice from behind her.

The Nebari thief jumped at the question and turned to see Jool coming around the bend in the corridor to meet her. The red-haired woman wore a pleasant smile and an aura of tense expectation about her.

"Nothing," Chiana replied as she caught herself. "I was just thinking out loud to myself."

"Oh," said Jool, "Are you heading to the maintenance bay then? Scorpius is there now examining the alien medical device. We should know shortly how soon he'll think we can try restoring Aeryn and Crichton."

Chiana nodded absently. "Yeah. Yeah, maybe I'll stop by and see what's going on."

"Good," Joolushko replied with her bright smile. She then looked around quickly. "Where's Berret? I had thought he might be with you."

"He's… he's still in his quarter's," Chiana answered. "He really doesn't like to be around Scorpius much."

"Oh yes, I have noticed that… and the fact that he and most of the others don't get along as well. I personally had hoped to be able to talk to him some more about the Syndicate and Shrikes," Jool went on, "I find the subject very fascinating historically. Did you know that Shrikes were at one time…"

Chiana held up her hand to halt the Interion's coming homily.

"Later, Princess. I just don't think now's a good time to be bothering Berret. I think he might be resting anyway."

Jool twisted her lips into a slight frown and gave her head a single dip that made the metal bound braids in her hair jiggle. "That's a shame," she said. "You know history is one of my favorite subjects. I could sit and discuss it for arns if I were able."

"Yes, I know…"

"D'argo and I use to sit up all night at the dig on Arnessk discussing Luxan history and the Seven Wars Campaign. He even knew some things about the Ilanic Third Renaissances that I found very intriguing."

"I get the point," the gray girl said with surprising hint of growing jealousy.

The switch in emotion wasn't totally lost on the red-haired woman.

"Ah, Chiana. I didn't mean anything by that," Jool told her, "I'm aware that D'argo and you are back together. I have no intension of coming between you two. Its just that I'm glad to be back here as strange as that sounds… and I'm happy to see you all again."

"That's okay, Princess," the Nebari responded as the sudden twinge of envy faded. "Its just that last few weekens have been hard on everyone, and we're all tired and wired out. And we're worried about what's gonna happen with John and Aeryn."

"I understand. I know what you've all been through to get here, Pilot was gracious enough to fill me in on the story a few arns ago. I'm worried about Aeryn and Crichton too. I'll be the first to say that I really don't like Scorpius, but he is a brilliant scientist none-the-less. If anyone can figure out how to reconstruct them – it will be him."

"Yeah, I hope you're right," was all Chiana could say.

The girls looked at each other silently for a few awkward microts, Jool biting at her lower lip in thought. It was plainly obvious that the Interion woman had something else on her mind.

"Umm, Chiana… may I ask you something personal?" she finally inquired.

"Why not, saying 'no' never stopped you before… I can't guarantee you'll get an answer though, Princess."

The red-haired woman nodded her understanding.

"I don't mean to pry," she started. Before the shorter girl could stop herself, Chiana let slip a snort, which the Interion didn't hear or chose to ignore in the interest of keeping their conversation harmonious. "But I was wondering, what exactly is your relationship with the Shrike?"

"Why do you ask?" Chiana countered with narrowing eyes, her mood turning suddenly suspicious.

Joolushko's face turned to one of confidential empathy. "Come on, Chiana. I plainly see the extra tension between him and D'argo – it's over you… at least, mostly over you. I know you love D'argo, but I can see you feel something for Berret too. And you're not your normal self around Berret either."

"What's that's suppose to mean?" the gray girl abruptly demanded.

Jool held up one hand in a peaceful gesture. "I mean, I've merely observed that Berret is a attractive male and you act with… some 'unusual reserve' when he's around."

"You mean flirt? Throw myself at him? Act like a tralk?"

"Well," Jool replied, "I was trying to be more genteel about it, but yes. It's not your usual nature."

"Berret and I shared some hard times a while back," Chiana explained, "He's a friend."

"Yes, Noranti told me about how the two of you met, and about how he came looking for you and sprung you all from that prison when Aeryn and John got crystallized. And about how he's stayed with you until you got your sight back."

Chiana frowned deeply. "Wrinkles talks too much," she added.

Jool shrugged in reply. "I just wanted to say, it's okay."

"What's okay?" the Nebari asked in slight confusion.

"That you feel something for him, its okay that you do," the Interion continued. "It doesn't mean that you love D'argo any less. There's room in your heart for more than one… I at least know that much about you. I've watched you the last few days and saw you struggling with it… and thought you just might have needed to hear the words from somebody."

The thief gave her a weak smile.

"Since when did you become old and wise,' she asked flippantly to cover her uncertainty.

Jool returned the smile, but stronger and more confident.

"You try living on a planet populated with ancient priests, and not learn something."

Chiana lightly giggled despite herself.

"I just wanted you to know you can talk about it with me if you need to," Jool went on. "I'll listen if you need a friendly ear."

"Who'da thought," Chiana replied, remembering all the past clashes the two women had had after the somewhat spoiled Interion first came aboard Moya. Like herself, Joolushko had changed, had grown up over the last few cycles.

"Who would have thought," Jool agreed with her, with a tiny sincere grin. "You helped me adjust when I awoke – in your own crass way. I owe you, and I do appreciate what you've done for me… and for your friendship. I'm here for you if you need me."

Chiana tried to smile back, but the weight of all she was holding inside made it falter. The smile died on her lovely face as it all came crashing down.

"He's… he's not the same," she started out of the blue.

"Berret?" Jool inquired.

The Nebari nodded to confirm the answer. She hadn't meant to say anything, but she suddenly felt she needed to talk about it, to share her troubles with a compassionate ear.

"He's different from when we first met, changed inside," Chiana went on, "Something's hurt, and I don't know what to do… how to fix it…"

Chiana went on to tell her the full story, about how she met the Shrike and how she felt at the time. About her sorrow when she thought he died. Her short-lived joy about discovering he was alive, and her helpless heartache as she watched his slow descended into madness, made worse the longer he stayed and tried to help her. About how she had to refuse the Shrike's request that she leave with him, and explain that she planned to make a new life with D'argo… and her pain at plainly seeing something crushed within him, even though her eyes were not fully healed at the time.

Jool had no doubt that the gray girl didn't need her eyesight to judge Berret's need for her to go with him, while Chiana was streetwise and could be fiercely callused if required, she was very much in tune with those she considered her friends and the people she loved.

The Nebari went on to tell her of the constant nerve-racking clashes between Berret and D'argo, of the ex-assassin's burning desire for revenge against his old Syndicate House, of Scorpius's grim proclamation of his impending death and her growing grief at the thought of losing someone else she cared about. And finally, of what Berret had revealed to her about the Syndicate's dark and twisted role in the coming possible war.

Jool listen supportively, but with her own growing concern. The Interion had no immediate answers for the Nebari girl, as she was no Zhaan… not a priestess with eight hundred cycles of life experience behind her. After all, she had barely reached adulthood after leading a sheltered and privileged life herself.

Chiana however did feel somewhat lifted for having unburdened herself to another soul. In this way, Joolushko in the very least had supplied the outlet the gray girl had grown to so desperately need at the moment.

The Interion did agree with one conclusion that Chiana had come to on her own, she needed to bring what she knew about the Black Syndicate's plans to the one person who would know what to do about them - Rygel.

D'argo came to a halt in his pacing.

"Do you know how to work the machine, or not!" he demanded, his low voice rambling across the maintenance bay like angry thunder.

For his part, Scorpius ignored the Luxan, instead focusing his attention on the eyepiece of a magnifier he was using to trace circuit routes on an opened control board. Sikozu turned and gave the warrior an irritated look at the interruption.

"D'argo," the Kalish responded curtly, "For the last time, when Scorpius has reached the conclusion of his inspection – he will let you know what he has discovered."

"Or he's just stalling for time," Rygel countered from across the bay where he floated in his Hoverthrone, obviously bored with the technical work taking place before him.

Sikozu huffed at the Hynerian. "If you think you can do better…" she began.

"No need, Sikozu," Scorpius suddenly announced as he stepped back and shut the panel door closed behind him. "I have completed my double check of the device."

The Luxan and Rygel came closer, nearly running into each other. "And?" they both asked at the same time.

The PK scientist tapped a few buttons and a number of lights on the reconstruction machine flickered to live. Somewhere inside it, a power source energized. The steady hum as it drew power from Moya filled the bay, low enough to be felt in the crewmates' teeth.

"I have deduced its operation, and confirmed that you indeed had wired the device correctly – obviously a result of Pilot's help. It is fully operational," he reported.

"When will you be ready to make the attempt to restore Crichton and Aeryn?" Rygel asked.

Scorpius slid a level over and the machine growled with an abrupt influx of new power. The scientist gazed at the two crewmates with a sly toothy grin.

"Right now," he replied, and then punched in a command on the keypad under his fingertips.

"Wait!" D'argo shouted, but it was too late.

Inside the collection area of the massive machine, a force field rose into place. The static box that was holding John and Aeryn's remains dissolved and the crystal particles floated upward into the air. Multiple beams of light shot from the gun-like lens of the device, moving piece's around, arranging others in a certain order, and then adding more bits of crystal to the now steadily growing masses, as if assembling a giant jigsaw puzzle.

"Frell!" the huge warrior snarled. Then slammed one meaty hand against his comm badge. "Everyone get to the maintenance bay," he ordered. "Scorpius has begun the process. The machine is starting to reconstruct Aeryn and Crichton." He slapped his comm off and then turned to the Scarran half-breed. "You had better pray that this works. I wanted more tests run on that thing before we tried to bring them back."

"Whatever for?" Scorpius sneered. "The device is relatively simple once you examine it. My Aurora Chair is much more complex. Any competent Peacekeeper tech with a class four rating could have figured it out within a few arns."

D'argo pushed closer to Scorpius, his anger rising. "If you've kill them in your arrogant over-confidence, I'll snap your neck a microt after they have died."

The smirk faded from Scorpius's face, and his own eyes turned lethal. It was obvious that the Luxan didn't intimidate the scientist very much; also obvious was that D'argo would have a fight on his hands if he did try to carry out his threat. But the Luxan didn't care. John and Aeryn were two of the best comrades he'd ever had. He'd gladly die to avenge them if he had to.

Scorpius's voice turned cool, but calm.

"You are aware that I have a vested interest in Crichton's well being as well?" he asked. "It would do me no good to have him die senselessly along with the wormhole knowledge he possesses. I was very thorough with the machine, I am positive it will function correctly."

D'argo's only reply was a menacing hiss. Rygel floated up to eye-level with the PK commander.

"There's little more we can do about it now," the Hynerian royal said. "We'll just wait and see where the ghambit dice fall." His eyes narrowed at the scientist as well, adding his own silent promise of revenge if his friends didn't make it.

The sounds of running footsteps could be heard in the corridors outside the bay as the rest of the crew approached.

Scorpius ignored the coming of the new arrivals and turned back to the still running machine.

"It will be several more arns before the device has sorted and realigned the crystal fragment for reintegration," he announced. "Sikozu and I will stay and monitor the progress. I suggest the rest of you leave and let us work. We will summons you when the final step is ready."

Stark, Chiana, and Jool burst into the bay just then.

"What's going on?" Chiana asked.

At the same time, Stark began to howl. "They know! They know! They can feel themselves being put back together! The agony their souls are in! They know what is happening to them…"

"Yotz," the Hynerian grumbled. "Not again."

"Somebody shut him the frell up!" D'argo demanded.

Jool stepped over to the Banik. "Stark! Stark!" she began to beg. "Now is not the best time…"

Chiana pushed the Interion out of her way.  
"Here, Princess, let me show you." The Nebari stood squarely in front of the hysterical man. "Stark! Stark!" she yelled into the man's face, at the same time snapping her fingers. A difficult act considering the gray thief was wearing gloves – but somehow she managed it.

Stark whimpered, but seemed to focus on her for an instant. Chiana's head cocked to the left. "Got your attention?" she asked. Stark frowned and made a babbling sound that could have been an affirmative.

"Good," Chiana added.

Then smashed her forehead into Stark's face.

The Banik's head snapped back, and his eyes rolled up into his head as he hit the floor unconscious.

The Nebari stepped backward and rubbed at her head where she'd hit the frenzied man.

"Thank you," D'argo said dryly.

"Don't mention it," Chiana replied with an equally dry smile.

Jool turned from the fallen man, to get a quick look at the busy machine sitting in the middle of the deck.

"Do you think Stark was right?" she asked the Luxan in a quite voice a few microts later. "Do you think they know what's happening to them?"

D'argo turned to regard her with a grim look.

"If they do," he replied. "They have no other choice but to simply bear it."

Several arns later, Berret's eyes snapped suddenly open as clear consciousness struck him like a war-hammer. His gaze focused sharply on the ceiling of his quarters. For a brief moment he floated peacefully on his sleeping platform, then his stomach rebelled and he barely managed to extend his head over the side of his bed before he threw up.

He had dreamed, and in his dreams he had remembered… and felt. In his time in the strange land of his memories, he had loved and been loved, had hated and feared. He had known the peace of family, the warmth of friendships, the lifting of joy and the cutting of painful sadness.

And he had known grief.

And my, how he had grieved. For the loss of all he had once had and known, for the cold life that was now all that was left to him. For what the Syndicate had made, for what he had done, for the memories that were even now slipping through his mental grasp like grains of sand.

And that was the worst, having been shown his past… only to have it creeping back out of reach again. Everything he had seen was getting harder and harder to recall every microt. They were his; he wanted to scream to whatever gods watch over mortals! The memories were the only things left to him, of who he had been… they were his only hope!

He grieved the loss of that anew. The grieving never seemed to stop, but at least it was a feeling that truly touched him, something more than the emptiness that was his existence.

Then a new image filled him. Skin of soft porcelain… soulful dark eyes… a voice with a song so sweet and comforting. The hope and safety of her kindness and the soothing desire to turn himself over to it.

Then the near crushing grief of knowing it will never be.

Berret snarled silently as he decided he'd had enough. If this is what emotions brought to him, the price he had to pay, he didn't want to feel them anymore.

With his head near spinning, it was easier to simply roll out of the bed; avoiding the mess on the floor he had made getting sick. "There are no answers in this!" he growled lowly as he came to his knees beside the platform.

This had only been an exercise in pain… and his life was already much too full of that.

"I will kill that old woman," the Enforcer swore, his hand found the frame of his bed as he brewed and took it in a death grip in his building rage. "She will never play another game with anyone again. I will find her… and I will rend her… limb – from – limb!"

Berret shot to his feet, at the same time throwing his bed end-over-end in his anger. The piece of furniture crash against a wall, and part of the Shrike was thrilled to find that his augmentation had returned to him.

He turned to catch his view in the room's reflective surface bolted to another bulkhead. In the image his eyes burned like twin suns, silver and out of control.

The microbes were still in over-drive, but as he seen himself and was reminded of his situation… he realized something else.

During his rant about killing Noranti… the voice in his mind had been totally silent!

It should have been there, driving him on to higher levels of violence. Giving him more gruesome mental pictures of the old woman's demise. Demanding that he act on his promise of death.

He paused, almost afraid that he was imagining it. A few more microts with nothing happening, he forced himself to search his mind for ruminates of the control collar.

He did eventually find it… deep in the background; the specter's voice so distance it was barely noticeable. His eyes in the mirror had shifted to a steadier tint of silver as he processed this new miracle.

That crazy old woman had found something that inhibited the pathways!

He forgot the urgent need to eradicate Noranti, forgot the moment of weakness and the recent abuse at Scorpius's hands. He left his quarters like a whirlwind to track the ancient down and get the answers he sought from her.

Even if it meant using unpleasant methods to persuade her to talk.

The hunt for the Shrike was a short one. He located Noranti in her room just a short distance away.

The door was locked, but Berret punched the lock panel out, slightly damaging his hand. Pilot would surely protest the ill treatment to Moya's interior, but the Enforcer cared even less for that than he did for his quickly healing hand at the moment.

He gripped the edge of the converted cell door and forced it open with a squeal.

Inside, Noranti glanced up from her makeshift desk with only mild curiosity at his sudden entrance.

"If you wished to come in," she said nonplused, "You simply had to knock and I would have opened the door for you."

Berret ignored her comment and walked up to her.

"I want a list and samples of every item that was in that drug you concocted for me," he announced.

"Whatever for, silly boy? I already told you the mixture will only work once on you," she responded.

The Shrike bent lower, bringing his face closer to hers.

"Give them to me, now," he demanded.

Noranti frowned, adding a few more wrinkles to her roadmap of a face. After a few microts, the third eye in her forehead drifted lazily open, pulsing through several colors. Berret ignored the extra orb, deciding he was going to give her only another five microts to comply before he resorted to violence to get what he wanted from her.

Instead, Noranti's frown faded, as if something new had been revealed to her that answered an unspoken question.

"Ah!" she said in understanding. "I see something unexpected has happen. Perhaps if you tell me exactly what you are looking for and why you want it, I can help you get to it quicker."

Berret scowled. The last thing he wanted was more 'help' from this insane old woman. But then again, she did seem to have more knowledge about him and the microbes than she let on. And it would hasten his search for the component of the concoction that was blocking the pathway's ghost if she knew what he was looking for in the first place.

Reluctantly, he told her of the side effect he was experiencing, and his desire to find what had caused it.

Noranti listened, and then nodded sagely when he was finished.

"I know exactly what herb is acting as the neural chemical blocker that's blocking the feedback," she announced.

"What is it?" Berret asked, ignoring an uncommon surge of hope.

"It's a fairly common medicinal herb, it has many different names on different words," she said as she went to a collection of bottles, boxes, and leather bags arranged around the end of her desk and began searching through them. Its normally used as a sedative with its strength ranging from mild to sleep inducing – depending on how its administered and concentrated. Ah! Here it is…" she said as she lifted a small box.

She opened the container to reveal several dried leaves, an even tinier number of what looked to Berret like roots, and a smaller glass jar filled with a fine-grained brownish powder.

"The roots contain the strongest doses of the drug, but the leaves have small percentages of it too. They make a nice soothing tea themselves. Both the leaves and the roots can be chewed, or distilled into a stronger concentrate like is in this bottle. The concentrate can be ingested, or injected –which works quicker. "

"That is all you have of this?" Berret inquired.

Noranti nodded an affirmative that was almost apologetic. "At the moment, this is all I have. I will have to restock my supplies at the next planet stop."

Berret's lips turned downward at the answer, but he decided that what they had at the time was better than nothing.

"Give it to me," he demanded, not caring that the old woman might protest handing the herbs over.

Noranti pulled the box out of his reach, and the Shrike prepared to get physical if need be to acquire it, and the contents.

"A moment… you must listen," the three-eyed woman said. Berret paused to hear her out, but making it clear with narrowed eyes his patience wasn't going to last very long.

"The root will only dull your condition for so long," she began. "Over time its effects will lessen and you will need to take more and stronger doses as your central neural system builds an immunity to it. Eventually it will cease to work at all, and you will find yourself addict to the herb itself. The very branch nerves in your body itself will crave it."

She paused to see if her words were having any effect on the Shrike, Berret merely watched her blankly, waiting for her to go on if she had any more information to give to him.

"It will be better for you, if you learn to strengthen your mind against what the collar left inside you, and to do it now before relying on drugs. The mind is very powerful in itself, and can heal a great many aliments both physical and mental."

"I do not have the time," Berret replied as he held out his hand for the box. "And do you really think I'm going to live long enough to learn mental tricks to solve this?"

Noranti frowned again, then handed him the box with the herb in it with a low sigh.

Berret neither made another comment nor thanked her, he simply spun on one boot heel and left her quarters with his booty.

The old woman watched him leave with something associated to sadness in her two normal eyes; the third one had drifted closed again.

"I wish you would have tried," she sighed at the man's back, "At least for her sake."

Once he was away from the old woman, with the box safely in his possession, Berret felt an odd sense of relief wash over him. Finally, something had gone the slightest way in his favor. The specter's voice was still somewhere far in the background and hadn't gotten any louder yet.

He concluded it would take some experimentation with the herb to find out how long the effects lasted. He considered the small amount of the drug the box held at the moment, and decided he was going to have to do his best to ration out what he had until he could acquire more.

Possibly just use the concentrated version when he needed to remain in strict control, and try the leaves and roots themselves for less important times. Either way, he had to pick his uses of his supply carefully.

He was just rounding a corner in the corridor, still deep in his thoughts when he ran into someone coming the opposite direction.

"OH!" Jool exclaimed as she rebound off the Shrike's hard body.

Berret almost cursed after discovering the Interion woman. She was almost as tall as he was and always asking question whenever she met up with him.

"My apologizes, Berret," the red hair woman said. "I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."

The ex-Enforcer grunted his reply, and swerved around her to make his escape.

"Er… Berret!" Jool called to his back. Berret groaned at the nuisance, but stopped in his tracks anyway. The woman would simply just follow him down the tier if he ignored her anyway. "If you're not busy at the moment. I would greatly appreciate if you could answer some questions I have about the Syndicate and Shrikes in general?"

The assassin turned to look at her, Jool gazed back at him with expectant hope in her bright green eyes. For some reason without the constant voice in his head, Berret didn't feel too put out by the request. He shrugged to himself and decided that the annoying Interion female would be the perfect test to see how effectively the herb would suppress the pathway ghost.

"You may not like what you hear," Berret warned tonelessly.

Jool smiled brightly as she realized the man might grant her request. "That's okay, I'm a scholar and sometimes we learn things from history that aren't all that pleasing. They are important none-the-less."

Interestingly, Berret found he liked her smile. It wasn't the same as Chiana's, but oddly pleasing anyway.

"I will tell you what I can," he replied.

Joolushko offered him a deeper smile, linked her long arm through his, and led the captive Shrike back to the Center Chamber where they could talk in relative comfort.

The woman was already firing off multiple questions at him without waiting for answers in her excitement.

Berret briefly wondered if perhaps he'd made a grave error using the curious female as a test after all.


End file.
